


The Nature of Not-So-Human Gits

by everythingmurky



Series: Time demi-Lord [7]
Category: Broadchurch, Doctor Who
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst, Crossover, Episode AU: s03e08-09 Human Nature/Family of Blood, Episode Related, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Gen, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-04-27
Packaged: 2018-10-11 10:56:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 55,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10463310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everythingmurky/pseuds/everythingmurky
Summary: The Doctor runs afoul of the Family of Blood, and his attempts to lose them bring others into danger.(Aka Human Nature/Family of Blood in the Child of Time universe.)





	1. Time to Take the Wrong Path

**Author's Note:**

> Um... I hate myself?
> 
> I don't know. I was trying to convince myself to work on other things, and I kept saying I had to watch more Tom Baker/Fourth Doctor before I was willing to work on the one again, and then for some reason I didn't manage to talk myself into my other AU, and instead... I started this. It is... a very bad idea, but I'm good at those, apparently.

* * *

If someone had told her a year ago that she would be here, she'd have laughed. That, or kicked them in the balls for even thinking she'd ever betray Joe like that. She wasn't that kind of woman, and she'd loved him so much she'd never think of leaving him. Dirty Brian had asked her out, and she'd said no to a drink. A drink didn't have to be anything more than that, but she'd still said no. She'd said she was happy. She had been.

And she never thought she'd be here, now. Sharing another man's bed, a ring on her finger saying she was his.

She closed her eyes with a wince, not sure she was ever going to sleep again. She was supposed to last three months, but she wasn't sure she'd make it a full week. She didn't have much of a choice—everyone who knew how to get them out of here was incapacitated—but she didn't know how she'd survive it, either.

A hand wrapped around her waist, pulling her up against him. She shivered, not sure how to react. She had shared a bed with a man since Joe, but that didn't do much to make this easier to cope with, not when she knew none of this should be happening. She hadn't actually planned on it, and if she'd known in advance, she would probably have refused. She'd have made damned sure it didn't happen.

She grimaced. That made it sound like she was with a monster, and she wasn't. Joe had proved to be the monster, not the perfect husband she'd thought she had. Still, if anyone had told her this was what would happen when she took this trip, she'd have run in the other direction.

“What's wrong?”

“Who said anything was wrong?”

He snorted. “You lie awake all night and expect me to believe there's nothing wrong? What kind of a bloody fool do you take me for?”

She didn't know. She wasn't sure how anyone had convinced him he was in love with her, but they had, and that was where this whole mess started. “I don't know.”

“You gonna tell me what's wrong? All week you've been like this.”

She sighed. She couldn't do it. A part of her wanted to, just spit it all out in a fit of anger or frustration, rage against this mess that someone else created, but she couldn't. In his state, he wouldn't understand it or believe it, and she couldn't bring herself to do it. He was too vulnerable like this, a shell of who he was and what he should be, and it wasn't right.

“I'm fine.”

“You liar,” he said, leaning over her, concern in his eyes. He brushed back her curls, frowning at her. His eyes searched her face, and she wondered what he saw. She didn't understand how he could look at her like that, how he could love her. That shouldn't be possible. Joe had ruined everything, ruined her.

And this wasn't real. She knew it couldn't be. She was living a lie, and she hated it.

* * *

The central console of the TARDIS sparked, and the Doctor winced as he dragged himself up from the floor. This was a disaster, the kind of thing that never should have happened, but for all that the TARDIS had a habit of taking him where he needed to be, she'd gotten this one very wrong.

He should never have been there. If he hadn't gone there, they would never have gotten his scent. Now, with it, he wasn't sure how he'd stop them.

He ran to the console, regretting removing the randomizer. The Black Guardian was no longer hunting him for the Key to Time, but it would have been simpler than trying to do calculations in his head while the ship was damaged. He sent them on their way and turned back again to his companions.

Martha was closer, and she seemed to be having some issues getting up. Was she hurt? Bad, very bad. This whole thing was bad. He ran to her side, pulling her onto her feet. “Did they see you?”

She looked around the room, shaking her head in confusion, almost like she didn't remember making it to the TARDIS. “I don't know.”

“Did they see you?” he asked, needing to know. If they hadn't, he could take Martha back to London, back to UNIT and her family, even Mr. Mickey. She'd be fine. He wasn't so sure about himself. And then there was Rose to think about.

“I don't know,” she repeated. “I was too busy running. They were shooting at us. This was not what I had in mind when I said I wanted a bit of a break from my family.”

“Martha, this is important,” the Doctor said, ignoring her words about the trip. They always blamed him, and it wasn't his fault. Not most of the time. “Did they see your face?”

“No, they couldn't have,” she said, and the Doctor nodded with relief. He went to the TARDIS, preparing to land the ship, but then the console beeped in warning.

He checked the screen and frowned. “No. Impossible.”

“What is it?” Martha asked, diverted from Rose's side to come back to the screen. “What happened?”

“They're following us.”

He started the TARDIS moving again, sending them back in the vortex and off to another place and time. He had to keep them moving. Maybe if he did, they could lose them. He knew it would be difficult, but the TARDIS was so much more than what they had. His ship could do this.

“How can they do that?” Martha asked. “You've got a time machine.”

“Stolen technology,” the Doctor answered, sure of that much. Those predators were not the sort to develop their own tech. “I'd assume they've got a Time Agent's vortex manipulator. They can follow us wherever we go, right across the universe.”

Martha went back to Rose, trying to wake her. “Isn't there something we can do?”

“Run, as usual,” the Doctor said. “In their current bodies, they'll expire in about three months. If we keep moving through the vortex, never really landing anywhere for long, not giving them more bodies to take as hosts... Maybe. Maybe we can outrun their life span.”

“Maybe?” Martha asked, frowning. “Doctor, if those things are so dangerous—”

“I know,” he said. “The only other plan I have is just as bad, if not worse. So we'll save it for when this one stops working. For now, we trust the TARDIS, we keep moving, and we'll plan for what might have to be done. Rose?”

“I think she must have hit her head,” Martha said, examining Rose for the injury. “I can't wake her.”

“Let me get us onto another destination,” the Doctor said, wishing he had a better way of doing this. He set the ship in motion, trusting the TARDIS to do the rest as he went back to Rose, lifting her into his arms. She didn't stir. “We'll get her to the infirmary, and then I'd better change course again.”

“I'll watch over her,” Martha said. “I promise. You do what you have to do to get us all out of this alive.”

He gave her a slight smile, though he had less confidence than she did in his ability to outrun this particular threat. These hunters were never going to stop, not when they had the scent of the last of the Time Lords to follow.

He set Rose down. “Right. I'll be back. Just a quick alteration to the course. The TARDIS will help you with Rose until I get back.”

Martha nodded, setting to work. She really was brilliant, such a good doctor. He almost wished he hadn't crossed her path and taken her off that because he thought she might have gone on to specialize in kids and doing great things for them instead of searching for aliens.

He went back to the TARDIS console and changed course, aware of her protests. “Sorry, old girl. We just have to keep running for a bit.”

* * *

Rose dreamed. 

The world was golden, full of light, and she could hear a voice in her head. She heard singing, the most beautiful song she'd ever known. She could feel it, feel how ancient it was, and yet it was new, like it had no beginning or end, and it just was.

The cocoon made by the light and the song was warm and inviting, and she could stay here forever. She wanted to, but she could sense something just outside the peace, something darker. Dangerous.

“Wolf.”

_I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself._

Rose frowned, not sure who had spoken or where the other words had come from. She tried to sit up, but everything was so heavy. She was tired, sleepy, and she wanted to go back under again.

_I looked into the TARDIS, and the TARDIS looked into me._

She tensed. She knew those words now. They were hers. She'd said them. She couldn't remember where or when, but she knew that was her. No, she did know when. She'd seen the heart of the TARDIS once—twice—when the Slitheen was onboard, but she'd looked away then, as the Doctor ordered. That time, she had. The other time... she'd looked right into the TARDIS. She had to save the Doctor, and the TARDIS knew how to do that. Together, they'd saved the Doctor.

She felt the warmth again, aware of its source now. The TARDIS. She was with the TARDIS again. She didn't understand that. She'd been with the Doctor and Martha on a planet, just a quick getaway for Martha since her family was being impossible again, and something had come after them, and they'd run. That was the same as always, even being shot at, and they'd made it to the TARDIS.

They were safe, so why was she here?”

“Wolf. You must remember.”

Remember what?

_I can see the whole of time and space._

She did, and it made her sick and dizzy. She couldn't keep up with the images coming around her, but she could see the Doctor in almost all of them. She saw pain and grief, she saw him lose his way and himself. She saw him do things he wouldn't do. That couldn't be him. It wasn't. She didn't believe that. She wouldn't let it happen.

She saw hope, saw a way of changing everything by making one person survive, and she knew what she had to do. She had to give the Doctor that hope, the one only his child could give him. She would have it be the girl she'd seen, but she watched her die and couldn't alter the timelines to save her or keep the Doctor there long enough to see her rise again.

_The hybrid must be kept safe._

That wasn't her, was it?

“How?” Rose heard herself ask. “What do I have to do?”

* * *

“Damn it,” the Doctor said, and Martha looked at him with a frown. She wasn't used to him using any sort of strong language. Rose had said that was the TARDIS filtering the translation, but Martha had never been able to prove that was a joke or not.

“What is it?” Martha asked, worried. “They can't attack us in the vortex, can they?”

He shook his head. “No, they can't. It's not that. All this traveling is draining the TARDIS' reserve energy. We won't be able to keep this up for much longer.”

“We can't keep running?”

“Not without refueling,” he said. “I know where to go, there's a good place or that, but we'd have to sit still for a few hours. It's a risk.”

“Is it time for your other plan?”

The Doctor grimaced. “I don't think that will work, especially as Rose is still—”

“Rose is still what?”

They both turned to face her. The Doctor just stared, his mouth hanging a bit open. Martha went to her side, giving her a quick hug before starting to look her over again.

“I'm so glad to see you again,” Martha told her. “You had us both worried when we couldn't wake you. I couldn't figure out what was wrong, even with the TARDIS' help.”

Rose put a hand to her head. “I was... asleep. It was just a few hours.”

“No,” the Doctor choked out.

“It was three days,” Martha told her. Then she frowned. “I think. I might have fallen asleep somewhere in the middle of it. He hasn't had any rest, though.”

“Oi, don't be like that, telling tales on me,” the Doctor said. He ran a hand through his hair, messing it up again. “I didn't—I barely sleep anyway. It's not the same for me as it is for you humans. I don't need half as much as you do. And Rose, she went and did enough sleeping for everyone, didn't she?”

He was still a bit choked up, and when he walked over to her, Martha thought he'd been convinced that Rose wasn't ever waking back up. Martha stepped back, still not sure what had caused Rose to lose consciousness and stay that way for so long, but she knew the Doctor needed a moment.

He touched Rose's cheek and then pulled her close, holding onto her. “Don't do that again.”

“You gave us a good scare,” Martha said. “Not that you were the only one.”

“What?”

“We've been running the entire time you were out,” Martha told her. “All over the place. We barely stop, but they keep managing to find us. The Doctor has us a few steps ahead of them, but we're going to need to stop. The Doctor just told me that we need fuel.”

“Oh,” Rose whispered. “Cardiff? The rift?”

The Doctor nodded. “The very same. Before we do that, though, we're going to need to take a look at you. I'm still not sure how you were out for that long. I'm afraid I haven't had as much time to puzzle it out as much as I'd like, since I've been busy driving, but we should—”

“I'm fine.”

“Somehow I don't think you are,” the Doctor told her, which Rose ignored, moving past both of them and to the console. “What are you doing?”

“We need to go to Cardiff. Now.”

* * *

“I swear, if he pleads not guilty again, I will kill him,” Miller muttered, and Hardy gave her a look. She'd already said it half a dozen times on the way here, and even Daisy was sick of hearing it. His daughter had a lot more patience than he did, but Daisy was also giving Miller the patented Hardy _shut_ it look and had been for the last part of their very uncomfortable trip. He wasn't sure what had made her think that the three of them together was any sort of a good idea, but then maybe she wasn't ever planning on Daisy being there.

He hadn't been, but his daughter had stuck rather close to him since she met her grandfather, and he figured he knew why. He didn't flatter himself that it was actually about him. It was about the bloody aliens.

“You know he won't,” Hardy told Miller, not for the first time. “And even if he does, we have a contingency plan for that.”

Miller nodded, still unconvinced. “I suppose that's why we're here.”

“Well, I did want to see Roald Dahl Plass,” Daisy said. She shrugged when they looked at her. “What? Don't tell me I'm the only one who read those books. I can't be. Oh, wait. I know I'm not. Dad read _Charlie and the Chocolate Factory_ and _The Great Glass Elevator_ to me when I was little.”

“I read them all to you, even the ones your mother didn't want me to read to you,” Hardy said, and Daisy smirked in triumph. He shook his head, looking across the Plass. He had no real desire to go down into the Torchwood hub. He'd never really cared for Harkness, and getting caught up in his psychotic brother's revenge had made it even more difficult to go to him for help. On the whole, that had ended rather... quickly, almost easily in some senses, but it could have been much worse, and not just for Harkness.

Hardy looked at his daughter again. He knew he couldn't protect her forever, but he was still angry that she'd been at risk. He would never be okay with that.

“You know where the door is, right?” Miller asked, and Hardy gave her a look. “Oh, don't tell me you're afraid of him flirting with you again.”

“I'm not interested in seeing Harkness again, ever. Joe is your husband. You go deal with the pervert.”

“Dad,” Daisy said, but the rest of her lecture was cut off by the wind picking up and a very familiar sound.

“Bloody hell. Tell me that is not,” Miller began, and then the blue box appeared almost right in front of her, “the TARDIS.”

* * *

Ellie was supposed to be watching her bastard of a husband plead guilty today. That was the only reason she was in Cardiff. Joe was supposed to go away for a long, long time. He was going to stay in prison this time, never to hurt her or her boys or anyone else again.

She was not supposed to run into Hardy's alien father. Again.

“No. This is not happening,” Ellie said. “We are not getting caught up in the middle of one of your father's alien things. Not today. This is too important, and it is _not_ happening.”

Hardy grunted. “You say that like I knew he would be here or even wanted him to be.”

“Of course you want that,” Daisy said, frowning. “I like seeing Gramps. One of these days, I am going to meet all ten of his faces.”

“Oh? And what if they turn out to be wankers again?”

“Miller. Language.”

The TARDIS doors opened, and Rose stepped out. Ellie couldn't tell which Rose this was, since she didn't seem to change much. She swallowed and crossed over to them.

“We don't have much time. You need to come with us.”

“What?” Ellie asked. She shook her head. “No. Joe is going to plead guilty today, and I am going to be there when he does. We're not going anywhere.”

“I need to see that we got the Latimer case right,” Hardy said. “I don't trust him to get us back in time. I don't care what the crisis is. He can jump ahead a day and come back—”

“No, he can't,” Rose said, taking hold of his hand and Daisy's. “Listen to me. We don't have much time. You are both in a lot of danger, and unless we get you out of here right now—”

“No. We are not—what the hell is wrong with your eyes?” Ellie asked, taking hold of Daisy and stepping back as Rose seemed to glow a bit.

“Bad Wolf,” Hardy said, and Ellie swore, knowing that couldn't be a good thing. She knew it was supposedly why he existed in the first place, but Rose was damned scary like that.

“Yes,” Rose said. “We have to go. Now.”

Ellie looked up as something green shot across the sky. Was that a bloody meteorite? “Please tell me that the world isn't ending.”

“Not if we leave now,” the Doctor said, looking them over with a frown. Oh, hell. He didn't know them again. Rose did, but he didn't. How did that even work? Ellie wasn't sure she wanted to know. “And I think the explanations are going to have to wait. Otherwise we risk giving some really nasty predators everlasting life.”

“You're kidding,” Ellie said. “Please tell me you're kidding.”

Hardy pushed her forward. “Get in the TARDIS.”

* * *

“So they're still tracking us?”

The Doctor nodded. “I've never known anyone to be able to do that to the TARDIS. Even the Black Guardian couldn't do that through the randomizer, and they shouldn't be, not with only a vortex manipulator. I can't figure it out. It doesn't make sense.”

“In your defense, you have been piloting the TARDIS non-stop for half a week now,” Martha said. “And all the while, you've been worried about Rose and trying to prepare that secondary plan. You really are doing too much and should get some rest.”

“He's not the only one,” Miller said, eying Rose with discomfort. “What is with the glowing?”

“The time vortex,” the Doctor said. “I thought—well, I thought that I had taken all of it out, but I must have somehow missed a part. It's reawakened somehow. I don't understand. I also don't understand another version of me and how we timed it so perfectly that we were able to find you at that exact incident just before they found us again.”

“We have to go,” Rose said, her voice still altered by Bad Wolf. “They will destroy the city if we do not keep moving.”

“We are moving,” the Doctor said, making a quick adjustment to the console. He ran a hand over his face. “We won't be able to keep that up for much longer, though. The plan was to refuel in Cardiff, but we didn't get a chance to with them showing up like they knew we'd be there.”

“Maybe they did,” Hardy said, and the Doctor frowned. “Exactly how many rifts in space and time do you know of? It's likely they were hoping you'd run out of fuel and came to check here after you'd made a certain amount of jumps. It may have nothing to do with technology at all.”

“Do you know that because you're a future version of him?”

Hardy put a hand to his head. “Bloody hell. I thought we were done with this. No, I am not a future him. I am his son.”

The Doctor stared at him. “What? That's not—”

“It's entirely possible when Bad Wolf alters timelines and human physiology,” Hardy muttered, not in the mood to have that debate again, especially not when they apparently didn't have much time. “Explain the predators. And this other plan.”

Martha frowned. “I don't—are we actually trusting him?”

“It doesn't really matter if we do or not,” the Doctor said. “Any Time Lord would be a target for these things, and we took a risk in going to Earth. We might have led them to someone who actually was one of my past selves—”

“Like the one with the scarf or the leather jacket,” Daisy said, and the Doctor frowned at her. “Yes, we've met them. I liked the one with the scarf better, but then he wasn't as grumpy as the leather jacket. Ellie kept calling him a knob.”

“So did you,” Miller said. Then she shook her head. “None of that is important. What is it that's threatening the world this time?”

“Gaseous predators,” the Doctor answered. “They're usually in family units. I think this one may well be the last of them. When they're not possessing a host, they have a very short life span, like a mayfly. Three months. I've been hoping to keep us running long enough to avoid them, but the strain on the TARDIS is... well, it's depleting her reserves, to say the least.”

Hardy nodded, making an adjustment and sending them back into the vortex. His father gave him a weary smile.

“Thank you.”

“Just tell us what this other plan is,” Hardy said. “I have an unpleasant feeling I know where this is headed.”

“You do?” Miller asked. “How do you—”

“They're the Family of Blood, and the Doctor uses the chameleon arch to hide from them,” Hardy said, leaning over the TARDIS console. “It didn't make sense to me—or you, the other you—that you could do that without knowing about me because they'd just have gone after me or Daisy. I'm not even sure that they wouldn't have gone after Harkness—”

“Technically, they should,” the Doctor agreed. “I can only hope that the lure of a Time Lord is enough to dissuade them. If I can find a place to hide us, then we can hold out until they die. It should end all of this.”

Hardy didn't like this. He knew he didn't. “No.”

“Alec,” Rose said. “You know this timeline—”

“No.”

“It has to happen,” Rose insisted. “You know it does. If it doesn't, then the timeline you know that lead to the crucible and the truth, the one that allows you to know your father—none of that happens.”

“Then it doesn't happen,” he snapped. “This is a shit plan, and I already know it doesn't work, but you want me to go ahead with it?”

“The timeline Jack experienced no longer existed. What he told you is not the same as this. And if you don't do this, Daisy will not be safe.”

“I hate you.”

“I know.”


	2. Time for Misunderstandings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie believes the TARDIS made a mess of things. Trouble is, she's making it worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well... This is not really what I thought this chapter would be, as I thought it would be so easy to do after I got home from work. Turns out, it was not, things got really ruined by work being... well, evil, and I had to rework the scenes a few times and it didn't go quite as hoped, but I think it could be fitting.
> 
> Then again, I'm in a mood because of work, I so want to just quit, and that colors everything, and I'm still trying to figure out how to feel about the new episode, too.

* * *

Ellie woke with a groan, grumbling to herself again about just how little sleep she'd managed to get, again. She knew that she would have more if she could just relax around Hardy, but if sharing a bed with him in that hotel had been a bit weird, sharing a bed with him in a bloody Scottish castle in the past was so far beyond weird it was impossible to believe she was actually doing it.

Not that she was at the moment. She frowned, turning over to confirm that the other half of the bed was empty. She touched the sheets, grimacing when they were cool to the touch. He'd been up for a while, then.

She saw him at the window, looking out at the distance. She frowned, sitting up and watching him. He had something in his hand, and she wasn't sure what it was. She rose, getting close enough to see him holding onto the fob watch containing his Time Lord half, running his thumb over it.

Grimacing, she went to his side. The Doctor had claimed that would have a filter on it to make it so neither of them would pay any attention to the thing, but like almost everything the Doctor said, that seemed to be wrong.

She reached over and took his hand, slipping the watch away from him. Tempting as it was to let him open it and end this nightmare, she knew that wasn't supposed to happen yet.

“Something wrong?”

He snorted. “You're gonna ask me that?”

She grimaced. She supposed that seemed a bit like pot and kettle, but then again, he'd been more or less fine after the chameleon arch stripped his memory and made him completely human. He didn't remember Sandbrook or Danny, not any of his other difficult cases. She didn't think he remembered Tess cheating on him, either. The lack of pain and guilt made him a different man, and while she still saw signs of the grumpy wanker she'd known, he was a lot lighter and happier—and god help her, affectionate.

“This... is all because of me?”

“Don't flatter yourself,” he said, pulling away from her. “I have other responsibilities.”

Right. He had a whole bloody estate to manage, since the TARDIS had somehow found a missing landholder for Hardy to impersonate for a few months. He'd become the local laird, and from what she could tell, he was good at it, but what the hell did she know? This was the past, and she'd never been much of a history student. She was a cop, not... this, whatever the hell it was.

“Daisy's happy here,” Ellie said. “That has to help, right?”

He frowned at her, shaking his head as he turned away from her. She somehow always got it wrong—exactly _what_ fantasy had the TARDIS given him when it let him think they were married? She must be some kind of simpering idiot that just fawned all over him or something because she never seemed to get this right.

She closed her hand over the watch, shaking her head.

“You know that's not mine,” he said, and she almost dropped it in surprise. She turned to face him, and he met her eyes, and she saw that same intimidating look in them that had forced more than one person to confess the truth to him.

“Of course it is.”

He shook his head. “It's not. I don't remember it.”

“Well, that's just—”

“Don't,” he said. “Don't bother lying to me. You've been acting strange all week. You're not sleeping. You're not eating. You pull away when I touch you, dodge every kiss. I'm not an idiot, Ellie. Don't think you can treat me like one.”

“I'm not. This isn't—”

He walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Ellie flinched.

“Bloody hell.”

* * *

Martha heard someone in the control room and left her room, making the short journey to the other room. Before the TARDIS powered down, she had moved Martha's room closer to the door, otherwise Martha might have been just as angry as the woman she found in the middle of the room giving the TARDIS a rather futile kicking. She would have laughed if not for her own growing resentment of their situation.

“You do know that if you break the TARDIS, we won't be able to get back to our proper time,” Martha said, and Ellie sighed, looking like still tempted to give the console another kick. “None of the people who can fly it or repair it remember how right now, so try not to break anything.”

Ellie gave the ship a dark look. “I _want_ to break something. I _want_ to hurt someone. I _want_ to go back home. I swear, I am not going to last another day, and you people want me to do two bloody months of this. I'm not. I want to go back to my sons. I want my life back. This is not what I agreed to, and you all know it.”

Martha grimaced, choosing not to point out that the Doctor, his son, Rose, and Daisy had no idea what Ellie had agreed to, and with the TARDIS powered down, even the ship wasn't really aware of it. “You said you'd help protect them while they're under the effect of the arch.”

“Yes, I did. Never once did I say I was marrying that knob,” Ellie muttered, putting a hand to her head. “Why would anyone think that was a good idea? The Doctor and Rose, yes, but me and Hardy? The idea is just as ridiculous now as it was when Joe's defense team accused us of it.”

Martha didn't know that she could call it ridiculous. She'd seen Hardy, and he gave a very convincing performance of being in love with her. He was almost as bad as the Doctor was with Rose, since all of their walls seemed to have been pulled down when they'd made themselves human. Even Rose was more open about her feelings, which Martha had always thought were pretty obvious before—it was the Doctor who held back and tried to pretend that he didn't feel anything more than friendship. Even now she figured he'd argue that it was someone else who was wholly in love with Rose, not him.

“We've been here a _week._ A week, and Hardy's already convinced I'm not in love with him. Not that it should have taken him more than a day, but bloody hell,” Ellie hit the console again. “He thinks I'm cheating on him—and he noticed that stupid watch.”

“It's supposed to have a perception filter on it.”

“Which doesn't work,” Ellie said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “How the hell are we supposed to do this? How can _you_ stand it? You're their servant. You, a doctor, are playing housemaid.”

“I keep telling myself it's just for three months. Like... taking a semester off to earn a bit of money for the rest of the year,” Martha said, shrugging. “And it's not like they treat me like... dirt beneath their feet. They're different, but still the same in a lot of ways. I think, anyway. Is Daisy that much of a sweetheart normally?”

“More or less,” Ellie said. She leaned against the console, closing her eyes. “She's still a Hardy, but she's got a bit more social skills than her father does. He's still a bloody detective, though.”

“Um... maybe you could try acting a little bit more convincing yourself?”

“Excuse me?”

Martha grimaced. She was, in part, glad that she wasn't the only one aware of what was going on and that there was still a threat out there because the Doctor wasn't, and he was the one they all relied on in a crisis, but she found herself wishing that Ellie had been given new memories by the TARDIS as well, since she couldn't seem to grasp the narrative the ship had given the Doctor's son.

“You have to convince him you're not cheating on him,” Martha said. “Try asking him about your past before him—it's not like the TARDIS made you Daisy's mother. You are his second wife. So... see what he remembers of before then. I don't suppose—you have kids of your own, so maybe you were a widow. Tell him it's thoughts of your first husband if you can. Or some bloke who jilted you. I don't know.”

“God,” Ellie muttered. “This is so incredibly screwed up.”

Martha did not disagree.

* * *

Daisy grimaced as the sun came in her window. She covered her head with a pillow, trying to shut it out and get a bit more sleep. She knew she'd closed the curtain before she went to sleep, so someone had come along and opened it first thing. She'd like to blame her uncle, he was always up to some sort of mischief, but he slept later than anyone else, usually, so it probably wasn't him.

With a sigh, she dragged herself out of bed, going over to the window. She looked out of the tower, yawning. Her father's land stretched out as far as she could see, all of it beautiful, lush and green. Scotland was much nicer than where they'd been before, though when she thought about that, she could hardly remember it.

She shook her head, going to the cabinet and taking out a skirt and blouse. She stopped, frowning as she pictured one much shorter, with black sort of trousers under it, and she stumbled, leaning against the wood for a second. That was strange. She knew she'd never dare wear anything like that. Her father wouldn't allow it, for one, and she wasn't interested in walking about naked anyway.

She dressed, humming to herself as she did, not sure where that song came from. She didn't remember her father teaching her it, and it wasn't quite naughty enough for her uncle. She swore that he had taught her every tavern song there ever was, much to her father's displeasure.

She tied back her hair with a ribbon and headed down the stairs.

“Ah, there's the lass that brightens every morning,” Uncle Jamie called as Daisy entered the dining room. She smiled at him, blushing. He was such a tease, though Rose didn't seem to mind. “Don't you think so, Alec?”

Her father grumbled and looked rather like he'd like to shove his brother out of his chair. Daisy found that hilarious, not a bit insulted. No, she loved watching them together, making her very glad that Uncle Jamie was here. She didn't think she'd like being stuck in this drafty castle if not for her uncle and aunt coming to stay.

“Morning, Da,” Daisy said, coming around the table to kiss her father's cheek. Her uncle gave a bit of a pout, and she laughed, circling back to kiss him as well before sitting down at the table.

“Morning, darling,” her father said, reaching for his tea. He was in a mood again, but then he almost always was since they came back here. She didn't think being a laird suited him, or maybe this place just reminded him too much of her mother. He never spoke of her, and Daisy couldn't remember her at all, but she knew the memory was painful.

“Your uncle's going to go round to the town today,” Rose said, sipping from her tea. “I was thinking I'd do the same, if you want to come with me.”

Daisy nodded. “I'd like that. I suppose you have meetings all day, Da?”

He grimaced. “Bloody land rights. More hassle than they're worth.”

“And yet another reason why I am very glad to be the younger son,” her uncle said, grinning. He reached over to poke his brother with a finger, getting a glare in response. “Better you than me. I like being free to come and go as I please.” 

Her father shook his head. “You wouldn't know responsibility if it bit you in the arse.”

Daisy looked at Rose, and both of them fought giggles. Her uncle frowned. Her father shook his head and finished his tea. He set his cup down and rose from his chair. She watched him go, aware that he hadn't eaten again this morning.

She frowned as she picked up her own mug. “Where's Ellie?”

Rose shrugged. “Haven't seen her this morning.”

“Well, now,” her uncle said. “That explains a thing or two. Well, then, I'm about to be off, but I think I need one more thing before I go.”

Rose leaned over and kissed his cheek. He frowned at her, but she just smiled. “Try and behave yourself for once.”

He grinned, stealing a proper kiss from his wife, and Daisy smiled at their antics, even if she knew she wasn't going to town with her aunt, not now. Those two were so adorably inseparable. Maybe she should go find her father instead.

If he was fighting with Ellie again, he might need some cheering up, especially before dealing with the tenants.

* * *

“I had that dream again,” Jamie said as he and Rose walked into the town. She had her hand in his, and he loved it. He never wanted to lose that, and he knew he was fortunate, considering that he'd have to be blind to miss the trouble stirring between his brother and his wife. They'd picked a poor time to visit, but he knew they didn't have anywhere else to be just yet. He liked traveling, would do it forever, always finding somewhere new to see and learn, but he knew it wasn't time yet.

This was home, though, and everyone should go back to their beginnings every once and a while.

“The one where you're traveling through space and the like?” Rose asked, giving him a smile. “I think that's the stuff of a book, you know. You could write them down. Even if the only person you ever share it with is your niece, I think you'd like doing it. And Daisy would love it.”

“Ah, that's no good,” he said, shaking his head. “Daisy's too easy. She loves everything I do. Think it's 'cause I'm not her father. Look like him, but I'm a bit freer, and I don't have to punish her or get her to mind me. He's got the hard job, not me.”

She snorted. “Listen to you and all that pride you carry about. Like you can do no wrong in your niece's eyes. She's not a little girl anymore—she's grown. And she knows you have flaws just like your brother. She's not a fool.”

“Certainly not. Not in this family.”

“Again,” she said, “not a bit too much pride in you. Not at all.”

He laughed, stopping to touch her face, lowering his head to kiss her. He stopped just before he did. “Why does it feel like our time together has been so short?”

“Probably because it has,” she said. “Two years. Two years since you came into my life and convinced me to leave it all behind on a daft Scottish physician. My mum would be so mad at me right now. I know it. She'd have slapped you.”

“No.”

“For daring to run off with her daughter? Yes,” Rose said. She wrapped her arms around him. “I dreamt about the stars, too. There was this beautiful golden light and singing. Such an incredible song... I wish I knew the words. I'd share them with you.”

“We'll write that book together, then,” he told her, and she smiled up at him. “Suppose I should go do some real work for a bit, though.”

She nodded. “All I've heard from anyone in town is how fortunate they are that the laird's son got himself educated enough to be a doctor. They can't believe their good fortune. Not only did the one come back when they thought he never would, but so did his brother—a physician.”

He grimaced. “I should have taken that teaching job in Plymouth.”

“You, a teacher?” Rose asked, shaking her head. “I can't see it. You can go almost anywhere you please as a doctor. People are always glad to see someone who can help. And you do help people, so many people, just like that man you dream about.”

“I suppose we are a bit alike at that,” he agreed, and she laughed so prettily he had to steal another kiss from her.

* * *

Hardy stacked the papers to the side of the desk and sighed, pinching his nose and trying to get his eyes to stop blurring. He was getting old, and he felt it, even more so when he looked at his brother and saw that endless energy he had, bounding about like he was still a child. Then again, in many ways, it still felt like he was.

Jamie was a wild free spirit, and that was fine for a second son. They had to find paths of their own, whereas he'd had one set out for him at birth, and there was no escaping it.

He heard a knock but didn't look at the door. “I said I'm fine, Daisy. You should go find someone better to spend time with.”

“Well, I think you should make time for her if she's willing to spend any with you,” a different voice said, “but she might be with Martha at the moment, which might just be better company after all. You know, since it's you.”

“What do you want?”

“See? Now that is what I'm talking about,” Ellie said, pushing open the door. He should have locked it when Daisy left. “I think we should talk.”

“I'm not sure you have anything to say I'm willing to hear. If you want to go back to London, I won't stop you. I won't even ask you to stay until my brother leaves for appearance's sake. Just go and be done with it.”

She sighed. “I'm not leaving.”

He snorted. “Well, that's a laugh. If you think you're staying in my house—”

“Do you remember your first wife?”

“Of course I bloody remember Tess, and she is not a subject you want to be bringing up now, of all times,” he said, trying to keep his temper under control. He hadn't wanted this. After Tess, he was done. He'd never thought about finding anyone else, not even with all those people telling him Daisy needed a mother. Ellie had sort of... ambushed him, without even meaning to. One day he just looked up and swore because he _did_ feel something for her.

Ellie came over to the desk. “You won't discuss her, but I'm in trouble for not wanting to talk. Do you know how much of a hypocrite you are?”

“Aye, I do. That doesn't mean I'm willing to do this with you.”

“You can't hold me to an impossible double standard. I won't do that. You unbelievable—”

“You're the one—”

“I am not having an affair,” she snapped. “You take two things that aren't related and jump to a conclusion like a stupid, suspicious git, and you won't even listen to me.”

“You're treating me like a stranger in our bed. Exactly what false conclusion am I drawing from that? It seems pretty straight-forward to me,” he told her, rising from the chair and going over to get in her face. “You pull away from me when I touch you. It's like I disgust you. I see that on your face. You're not hiding it from me, even if you think you are.”

She winced. “Hardy, it's not what you think—”

“It isn't? And if I were to touch you now, if I were to kiss you—there it is again in your eyes. Go. Get out. Just go.”


	3. Time for Social Awkwardness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The extended family tries to cope with their new roles and each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So a part of me said, "be smart, pick a time period you know well." And I really tried to talk myself into it, but I wanted something that could excuse the extended absence of the Hardy heirs, so... I chose this one I'd pretty much settled on long before I started the story.
> 
> And I made up the name of the lairdship based off of a list of place names, and it's probably wrong because I never really studied the language, though if I had time, I wouldn't mind it. I lost a lot of what I studied in school, and I still hate that, as I once had dreams of learning all sorts of languages and now I just screw up my own.

* * *

_“You're actually going to go through with it?” Miller asked, frowning as she looked at him. “You saw what that thing just did to your father, and you're still going to do it?”_

_Hardy nodded. He had seen just how painful it was, but that didn't mean that he was going to back out now. They were already committed to this, and since the TARDIS only had enough energy for a few more trips, it wasn't something they could avoid for much longer._

_“I have to,” he said. “Can't afford to let them get anything Time Lord. Can't let them have the human part of me that comes from someone altered by the time vortex, either.”_

_Miller grimaced. “Yeah. She does kind of... glow.”_

_“We should have left you in Cardiff.”_

_“What?”_

_He didn't look at her. “You didn't have to be a part of this. If there was any way to keep Daisy out of it, I would have, and you... you're not a part of this. This isn't Sandbrook. I don't need someone to help me find what I missed. You shouldn't be here. Don't have to be involved. 'S not your problem.”_

_She snorted. “I don't think I could get rid of you if I tried, sir.”_

_He shook his head. “You're about to, Miller. Once this happens, I won't be myself.”_

_“Oh, if that was all it took to make you less of a knob, I'd have signed you up for this first day we met,” she said, and he frowned. “Actually, no. I wouldn't. As much as you irritate me, I've never wanted you dead. And... you kind of will be.”_

_“Ah, Miller. Don't tell me you care.”_

_“Daisy will survive this, right? Because she's only a quarter Time Lord and—”_

_“She'll be fine.”_

_Miller nodded. “We'll make sure of that. I mean, I will. I get to keep my memories. Lucky me. Wait, I'm going to be protecting your sorry arse? When did I agree to that?”_

_“Back during the Latimer case, I think.”_

_“No.”_

_He nodded. “Not that you said it, but you've been doing it since then.”_

_“No, I haven't.”_

_“Miller, you let the suspect go because I collapsed. You paid your sister a bribe because I was running out of time—”_

_“It was not a bribe.”_

_He snorted. Then he looked at the floor, put his hands in his pockets, and sighed, forcing himself to look back at her. “There's no one else I'd trust to do this. With my daughter.”_

_“Not even Tess?”_

_He grimaced. Tess had lost so much of his trust after losing the pendant, and while he'd made it so Daisy could stay with her mother and Tess could provide for her, nothing was ever the same after her affair and never would be again._

_“Daisy will be fine,” Miller said. “And so will you, you knob. I'm actually looking forward to seeing you turn into a real human.”_

_“Shut up.”_

* * *

“Well, if it isn't the Maid of Dùn Ùine.”

Daisy bit her lip, refusing to turn around before her cheeks had shed their flush. Martha was doing the shopping they needed for the next few days, and Daisy had planned on helping her carry it back, but she'd gotten distracted by the advertisement for the local dance.

She couldn't remember the last time she'd gone to any dance.

Strangely, she remembered crowds of kids in trousers and those same short skirts like she'd seen before. She didn't think a one of them had a corset on, and that she liked, even if she didn't wear hers all that tight—she dressed herself, so how could she?

Oh, no. Someone was talking to her.

She turned back. “What did you just call me?”

“The Maid of Dùn Ùine,” the boy answered. “Or... did I get that wrong? It's been a long time since we had a laird at all, and most of them had sons going back generations. I think you're the first female heir... ever.”

Daisy frowned. “Oh.”

“I did get it wrong, didn't I?”

He was wrong, but she didn't even want to tell him. He only cared that she was the heir, and she wasn't, not really. Dùn Ùine could only pass to another _male_ Hardy, so unless her father had a son with Ellie, her uncle would get the lairdship, not that Jamie wanted it.

“Excuse me. I have to get back,” Daisy said, going into the shop to find Martha. She should be about ready to go by now, but even if she wasn't, at least Daisy got away from him. This was, according to her father, half the reason he'd avoided coming back to Dùn Ùine, since all anyone would see when they looked at her was her inheritance.

It made her sick.

“Daisy?” Martha asked, frowning. “Is something wrong?”

She shook her head. She didn't want to talk about it. “It's nothing. Did we get everything we needed?”

“I was just finishing up,” Martha said, smiling. “We can walk back whenever you're ready.”

“I'm ready now,” Daisy said, hoping that they wouldn't run into that boy again. This was so embarrassing. And stupid.

“I think I see your aunt and uncle out there. Would you rather go back with them?”

Daisy didn't know. It might be nice, but then she might be intruding. She didn't know where she fit. Back before they came here, she had—she didn't remember. She didn't think it was bad, since it didn't upset her to think about it, but she couldn't remember it very well, either.

“Here you are, Miss Jones,” the shopkeeper said, bringing her a basket full of vegetables and other things. “That's everything you asked for. Oh, Miss Hardy. I didn't know were here, lass. I'm sorry. Is there anything you need?”

“No, thank you, though,” Daisy said, uncomfortable all over again. Why was everyone being like that? She wasn't anyone special, and she didn't see why they kept acting like she was.

“Are your parents coming to the dance? It's been a long time since the laird has, and it would do the town wonders if he did.”

“I... I have no idea,” Daisy said, though she doubted it, between her father hating all parties and whatever was going on with Ellie. She thought her stepmother might be sick, and she was worried. She didn't know what other secret she'd keep from Daisy's father.

“The laird doesn't usually tell us his plans,” Martha said. “I'm sure he understands what it means to the community and will be there if possible.”

“Of course,” the woman said with a smile, turning to leave.

Daisy looked at Martha. “I don't think you should speak for Da again.”

“I know it's not really my place—”

“No, it's that you really don't know my da,” she said, trying to be as kind about it as she could. She liked Martha, she really did. “He won't come. He hates parties. And dancing. He and Ellie didn't even have a party when they got married.”

Martha grimaced. “Well... it's still weeks away. Maybe he'll change his mind?”

Daisy laughed.

* * *

“I think they love you.”

Jamie grimaced. “I think I'm fortunate I had this lovely blonde at my side, else I might have been mobbed by all those women. Don't you laugh, Rose. I swear more than one of them tried to grab my bum.”

She smiled, definitely laughing now. She didn't care if he'd told her not to, she couldn't help it. “I can't blame them. It's a very nice rear.”

“And now I am very scandalized, Mrs. Hardy,” he said, putting a hand on his heart. “Here I thought I married a gentle, respectable girl. How could I have been so deceived?”

“Oh, you,” she said, swatting at him. He'd known exactly what she was when he asked her to go with him. She'd even said no the first time, and he'd come back to ask again. She didn't regret it—she'd seen some wonderful things with him, and she knew that there was still more to see. She couldn't go back to any boring life in London. This was what she wanted. _He_ was what she wanted.

He grinned at her. “So, about traveling. I was thinking about where we might go next.”

She frowned. “You want to leave already? You haven't seen your brother in years. Come to think of it, no one has, have they?

“Ah,” Jamie said. “Now there's a bit of story. Not an interesting one, not really. I mean, I suppose it was a bit—well, it's just so long ago and so old... I don't know that there's a lot of point in telling it.”

“I haven't heard it.”

“True,” he agreed. “Well... Alec and I grew up here, as you know, but even when I was young, I wanted to wander. I don't think that was what Alec wanted so much as he and our father—oh, they did not get on. They had awful fights, all the time. Seemed that since Alec was to inherit everything, our father thought he'd be exactly like him, do everything he said, and that's not the sort of thing Alec does. The more you tell him what to do, the more he retreats into himself and when he does speak out, he can be cruel, almost vicious. So when I set off to school, I suggested Alec room with me, and that did wonders for fixing things. Much less tension all around, though I think there was always some worry that Alec would find some other means of supporting himself and abandon Dùn Ùine completely.”

Rose frowned. “Did you think he would? I don't know him well, but he seems too... responsible for that.”

“Oh, every man has his weakness. In Alec's case, it was Tess. Lovely woman, physically at least, but she just wasn't suited to being Alec's wife, oh, no. He had no formal title, as you know, since being a laird isn't really the same as being able to sit in the House of Lords. Still, when it was a love match, I was quite envious of it. They were happy, they had Daisy... It seemed very much the picture of what it ought to have been.”

Rose took her husband's hand. “You seem upset. I know no one talks about Tess, and I gather she's been dead for a long time, but I didn't—”

“Tess isn't dead, at least not that we know of,” Jamie corrected, and Rose stared at him. “I never told you before because I had no interest in dragging up past pain, and it's not common knowledge here, but when Alec was in the Crimea, she ran off on him. Took up with another man, even left Daisy behind. Between the war and Tess' betrayal, I think we might have lost him if not for Daisy. She gave him purpose, and he's been devoted to her, trying to make up for his absence, which I think he still blames himself for being away. If he hadn't gone, maybe Tess would have stayed.”

“Do you think so?”

“Oh, I don't know,” Jamie said. “I wasn't that close to Tess, and I don't think she thought much of me. Maybe if I had a respectable practice somewhere, but this wandering that I do, that she didn't like. I think she may have thought I was behind Alec's decision to go away, as I was there as a medical officer myself.”

“What, he went and fought a war to keep you safe?”

“You don't think he would? You don't know Alec at all. For all he grumbles at me, I know he cares. He would sacrifice everything for those he loves, which is why Tess' actions cut so deep. I certainly never thought he'd marry again.” Jamie took a deep breath. “Anyway, it hardly matters now. Alec got the word that our father was gone and came back to take up the role he was born for, and that's that. I'm not tied here, though, and I was thinking... France. You know it's a whole other world there.”

Rose frowned. “I can't speak French.”

“I can,” Jamie said cheerfully. _“Allons-y.”_

* * *

There was nothing else for it. Ellie went through her options in her head, and she couldn't think of a better one. Or, really, _any_ one. Hardy was supposed to be less of a knob this time, but now he was some kind of laird and she was supposedly married to him, and it just made this thing such a mess that there was pretty much only one thing she could do.

She grabbed hold of him by the lapels of his suit—of course he still wore a bloody suit—and kissed him. Martha had said make it convincing, and Ellie should have covered her ears and ran off screaming, because this was such a bad, terrible, stupid idea. She'd already gotten herself in trouble because she'd been _avoiding_ it, but now she was _instigating_ it.

Oh, bloody hell. She was kissing him.

She was _still_ kissing him. It wasn't even that romantic, not when she thought about why and how she was barely even aware of it over the thoughts in her head. She was kissing Alec Hardy. DI Shitface. The Time demi-Lord and knob.

He pulled away from her. “The hell did you do that for?”

“What?”

“That. What did you do that for?”

She looked at him. “Seriously? After all that complaining that I wouldn't do it, now you're complaining because I did?”

“I am if you think you can just... do that and make this better. That's not how it works.”

“Not when you're an unreasonable, suspicious arsehole.”

“Damn it, Ellie. You know what Tess did to me. Why would you think I wouldn't be?” he asked, making her feel a bit sick. The TARDIS had kept that memory? Why would the ship do that? Did it hate him? Or did it think he needed to have that as a part of who he was? Why have him get married again, then? Why not just... stick him with that and be done with it? So his wife ran off, leaving him with their daughter to raise alone—that was what it was, right? So Tess left him. It sucked. He didn't need to marry again, and definitely _not_ Ellie.

“Hardy—”

“I think you should go,” he said, and she opened her mouth to protest, but he held up a hand. “I won't tell you to leave the house, but if you don't leave the room—”

“You'll say something that will make me want to piss in cup and throw it at you? Again?”

He stopped, staring at her, and she almost flinched. Well, that was the wrong thing to say in this time period, that was for damned sure. She was not some demure lady that should be the wife of some important landowner. They'd called her 'The Much Honored Lady Hardy of Dùn Ùine,' and she'd wanted to laugh.

She really couldn't do that now. None of this was funny.

“Ellie,” Hardy began, and she kind of thought she didn't mind him using that name when he wasn't telling her that her husband had killed an eleven year old boy. It helped that he didn't seem to know how to react, which was kind of funny in its own right.

“I know,” she said, trying to smile at him, afraid it was going to go very wrong.

And it did, but not the way she thought.

He kissed her back.


	4. Time for Fears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Strange things are happening both inside and out of the Hardy home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I had this horrible thought after the last chapter that it seemed like this story seemed to be all about romance. And while I am a hopeless type and a shipper (obviously) I am not good at stories where the romance is the only thing, and really, this was never intended to be that. It wasn't going to copy Human Nature completely, but with the setting change and dynamics of a family instead of one Time Lord to human conversion, it almost felt like I'd lost track of the whole thing already.
> 
> Enter plot, stage left. Hopefully that's not a bad thing.

* * *

Ellie watched the flickering of the leaves in the moonlight, waiting to hear the change in Hardy's breathing that said he was out, but he still wasn't. She didn't think she'd actually fixed anything, kiss or no kiss. Trouble was, with her accepting a kiss, she'd started worrying about what else he'd expect her to accept, and that had gotten her so tense she'd been unable to relax and fall asleep, even though he hadn't done anything since that kiss in his office.

He was a perfect gentleman. He'd pulled her chair out for her at dinner, and the meal was nice—in company more than in food, since Martha wasn't half as good a cook as she was pretending to be.

Then came nightfall, everyone else going their separate ways and off to bed, which left her with Hardy, expecting the worst.

That was wrong. It wasn't like Hardy was a rapist, no matter what Claire said, and Ellie didn't believe he'd slept with her, though she didn't put it past Claire to have tried it. Hardy was a difficult man. She'd called him every name she could think of, and she'd meant them. He infuriated her most of the time, and she'd hated him when she first started working for him. Then he'd showed her unexpected kindness and understanding when Joe was arrested, and she'd turned to him when she had no one else.

He wasn't evil. He wasn't even that bad a person. He had no social skills, and he didn't understand boundaries. He overstepped them at times, acting more like a detective on a case and stomping over every bit of her life, but even so, she thought he'd been about the only friend she had after Joe's arrest.

She hated that, thinking about it like that. She had Beth back again, and she was glad. She'd actually like to be able to talk to her about this because as nice as Martha was, she didn't understand. How could she? They'd barely met, and she didn't know the whole sordid saga of Danny's death, her husband's guilt, and Ellie's own in letting the trial fall apart.

Then Hardy had found out—rather against his will—that he was half-alien, and that had altered everything again. She'd gone from thinking the job-stealing knob was almost a human being underneath all the grumpiness and temper to knowing that he was part Time Lord and might have some very good reasons for being as screwed up as he was.

She had actually agreed that if he were to have a TARDIS that she'd be willing to travel with him. That still didn't mean that she had agreed to marry him. She still had trouble accepting that they were, in fact, friends.

So she'd been dreading the night, thinking he might push for sex after the kisses, but he'd said nothing, hadn't even tried to hold her since they got in bed.

She was relieved, but she still couldn't relax and sleep. She kept expecting him to say something or try for something, and it had her on edge. She couldn't believe what the TARDIS had done in making her his wife. She didn't care what time period they were in. She could have been a servant, like Martha. She would have hated it, like Martha, but she thought it would be better than Hardy's wife.

“You didn't have to be right.”

“What?” Ellie turned back to face Hardy, not sure what to think of his words. She had to see if he was actually awake.

“You said we'd regret this,” he said, reaching over to touch one of her curls.

“I did?”

“Aye.”

She had a terrible feeling she'd just failed another test. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

He let go of her hair and turned away. “Go to sleep, Ellie.”

* * *

Hardy gave the bed another glance. Ellie had finally fallen asleep just before the sun rose. He hadn't, still trying to understand her behavior. They'd always bickered, that wasn't something new or unexpected. He'd figured she hated him in the beginning, and he hadn't liked her much, either, but she'd been good with Daisy, and that had been enough to keep her around at first.

Then he had that terrible moment when he'd realized he felt something for her that went far beyond irritation or slight admiration of skills but deeper, the kind of feeling that he'd assumed died with Tess' betrayal. He hadn't ever planned on telling her, but they'd argued again and it came out in one of those things he never meant to say.

He'd made about the lousiest proposal in history, he had to believe, and it could only have been worse if he'd meant to say it. She'd called him half a dozen creative names, and he figured she'd leave right then, but she'd accepted his awful proposal with “we'll regret this.”

Until this week, they hadn't. At least... he hadn't. He couldn't speak for her, but he didn't see how she could forget that. Keeping secrets was one thing, and he'd been torn between wanting to strangle her and desperation to hear he was wrong when he'd thought she must be having an affair, but this was so much worse than an affair.

She'd forgotten how they got married. Ellie wasn't a typical woman by any means, but to forget something as spectacularly disastrous as that moment had been—how could she?

He left her in the room, still trying to understand what was happening to them. Everything was different now at Dùn Ùine, but him taking up a role as a landowner shouldn't have altered her to this degree.

He went downstairs, deciding against breakfast. He didn't want anyone's company now, and he had trouble with his brother's carefree ways on his good days. If he saw Jamie now, they'd only argue. No point in that, though he could use a target for his temper, needing something to rage against the things that no longer made any sense.

Between the odd dreams and Ellie's behavior, he was unsettled, and he didn't like the growing sense he had that something was very wrong.

He had just started toward his study when heard the voice booming from the other room.

“Let me go, woman. I told you—I've come to see the laird, and he damned well better do something about this.”

“I'm sorry. Mr. Hardy isn't available,” Martha began, but the bellowing man was having none of it. Hardy turned, deciding he did have a potential target now, since he didn't take like it when people mistreated anyone in his home. Servants were still people, and while most of his hated him, they didn't do it because he allowed anyone else to abuse them.

He just had a temper of his own.

He walked over into the foyer at the same time as his brother. “What do you want, McKinney?”

“I want you to do something about this butcher that's been stealing my sheep, that's what. I can't have this. Half my flock's been taken. I'll be ruined if this keeps up.”

Jamie looked like he might laugh. Hardy gave him a pointed look, and he smiled cheekily in return.

“You want me to find your lost sheep?” Hardy asked, folding his arms over his chest.

“I know where they are. They're in bloody pieces all over the highlands. I want you to find the bastard that killed them.”

* * *

“Are you... pregnant?”

Ellie dropped her mug, spilling her tea all over the table and herself. She stared at Rose, swallowing and trying to find words. Daisy had choked on her drink, coughing. She set her glass down and watched Ellie, who stammered a bit when she spoke.

“Why would you ask that?”

Rose smiled. “It's not a secret you've been acting strange, you know. We've all noticed. Daisy asked me before you came down if I thought you were sick and should we get Jamie to look at you.”

The girl blushed, lowering her head and not meeting her stepmother's eyes. She tried to pretend she was interested in her food, but how could she be with that question out there unanswered? Rose had to know. It had been bothering her for a bit, not that it helped, everyone in this town asking her if she was going to have any children of her own.

She thought part of that had to do with what Mrs. McDonald said about this place having to pass to a male, meaning that Daisy couldn't get Dùn Ùine, making Jamie Alec's heir. They even called him the Younger, which annoyed him.

Rose wasn't having a baby just so this place could go to her husband's son. Not that she was even sure she could—they'd been married long enough where a child should have come along by now, and she didn't know why there wasn't one except maybe all the traveling they did kept her body from doing normal things. She was almost afraid to ask Jamie, not sure how he'd react, or if it was something worse and what might happen then.

“I'm not pregnant,” Ellie said, and Daisy's head shot back up, looking at her stepmother like she was begging for Ellie to take that back. “I'm not.”

Daisy rose from the table, muttering some excuse too low for anyone to hear before leaving the room. Ellie grimaced, turning back to Rose.

“Why did you have to ask that?”

“It seemed like a good reason why you'd be acting out of sorts,” Rose said, reaching for her tea. “Though the way you reacted, I'd almost think it couldn't be your husband's baby if you were.”

“Excuse me? Who the hell are you to say that to me?”

“Your sister in law,” Rose reminded her, setting down her cup and facing her. “Something is wrong here, and everyone knows it. Daisy's worried about you and her father, and she's not the only one. I think whatever's going on between you two is half the reason Jamie's now set on leaving when we only just got here, and I don't like it. It's like he's running, and why should he run?”

“Because he's an irresponsible wanker,” Ellie muttered, rising from her chair. “I haven't done anything wrong. Things are... oh, they're complicated, but it's not what you think.”

“Are you sick?” Rose asked, trying to be gentler than before. She wasn't sure why she'd been so upset over this, either, but something had her on edge, too. Jamie's idea of leaving scared her for reasons she couldn't begin to pin down.

“No.”

Rose sighed, shaking her head. “Don't you feel it?”

“What?”

“That something is very wrong here.”

Ellie looked back at her with a frown. “Why would you say that?”

“I don't know,” Rose admitted. She couldn't explain what she felt or why, as it all seemed crazy when she thought about it. She'd say the book she'd teased Jamie about was real, and he wasn't just a doctor with a lot of wanderlust but something much more. She both feared and longed for that glowing light and song in her dreams. And something about Dùn Ùine itself was strange, though she hadn't seen or heard anything that should frighten her.

Ellie forced a smile. “Well, you were only planning on staying a couple months. That should pass in no time at all. Then you can be back to the life you knew.”

Rose looked at her, not feeling the slightest bit relieved.

* * *

“You didn't have to come for this,” Alec said, and Jamie almost laughed. He didn't know why his brother had thought he wouldn't. This had to be the most interesting thing that had happened to Dùn Ùine in centuries, with the exception of Alec's return, which Jamie couldn't count since he'd seen his brother many times over the intervening years. “Don't you have more sick people you could be helping?”

“Oh, listen to you. The great and mighty laird who doesn't know if his citizens are ill or not,” Jamie teased, nudging his brother with an elbow. McKinney gave them a glance, and Alec started outpacing him again, forcing Jamie to hurry after him.

“I'm not in control of everyone. You know better than that,” Alec snapped. “I own a great deal of land. That's all. It's just a bunch of land and a drafty ruin of a castle—”

“It was a fort.”

“Who bloody cares what it was?” Alec demanded. “It doesn't make me lord and master of all there is here. This place survived without a laird for years, and it'll do it again if something happens to me, especially as the land can't go to my daughter.”

Jamie grimaced. “No. I am not your heir. Don't say it.”

“The money is Daisy's. The land is yours. Not a damned thing either of us can do about that,” Alec said, and Jamie frowned. Something more than normal irritation was eating at his brother, and he was going to have to ask questions he didn't want answers to, wasn't he? Just how bad were things between Alec and his wife? Jamie knew they argued, but he'd thought that was actually something that they enjoyed doing, not something that would drive them apart, at least not before Dùn Ùine.

“Yes, but me with land. That's just... unnatural.”

“You're unnatural.”

Jamie should be offended, but he laughed. “You would say that.”

Alec grunted, taking the last step up the hill and stopping. Jamie joined him, looking down at the massacre in front of them. He frowned. This should be the work of an animal, but if it was a predator, why hadn't it actually eaten any part of the helpless creatures it had attacked? All the pieces did actually seem to be present, though Jamie didn't feel like reassembling each sheep to be sure of this.

Alec's eyes swept over the scene dispassionately. “Anything like this ever happen here before?”

“Wolves are myths around here,” McKinney told him, his tone suggesting that Alec was just as guilty as the creature behind this because he didn't know, hadn't been here. “You know that.”

“Who said this was the work of a wolf?” 

Jamie nodded. “I would have thought a wolf more likely to carry off a single sheep or dig up a grave. I suppose there haven't been any deaths lately, which could explain the sheep, but then again, it doesn't. This doesn't fit with the behavior of a typical wolf.”

“Doesn't fit with the behavior of _any_ predator,” Alec corrected. “More like that of a madman.”


	5. Time for Theories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tensions continue within the family as they investigate an outside threat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So all day yesterday when I was trying to update my other story, I was bombarded not by ideas for this story or even the other one in the Child of Time universe with Four, but instead I keep having thoughts about a story that would continue ideas from Just a Stupid Dance. I have too many stories in this universe, and I'm making messes of them all, but apparently my brain won't let that one go. *sigh*
> 
> Anyway, this should have been done sooner, but other things got in the way.

* * *

“McKinney thinks you're insane.”

“Do I look like I care what he thinks?” Hardy countered, and Jamie grimaced. He knew that insisting this was the work of someone human wasn't going to go over well with anyone. He wasn't a fool. This kind of butchery should only be in the hands of monsters, the ones everyone accepted as a fact of life, predators coming in to do what they would as was their nature.

This didn't fit with that. Oh, some wildcat could have come by, he supposed, but they were rare enough, and as McKinney had pointed out, wolves were extinct. Hardy wouldn't put it past superstitious locals or drunks to have seen some of them, but officially the country had been free of them since the reign of Charles II.

“I know you don't care,” Jamie said. “Why should you? The man's a blustery fool, that's all, speaking a lot and making no sense at all.”

“Surprised you two didn't get on, then.”

Jamie glared at him. “I'm nothing like him. Oh, I know a few things that are impractical, and I know you get irritated when I rattle them off instead of being so direct and pointed and temperamental like you, but I actually have some sense, you know. I'm not the one insisting one minute that there's a killer on the loose and denying it two seconds later. And why assume this was a wolf? He did that, not us. We're none of us ignorant of history, and wolves were, rather unfortunately, hunted to extinction. Pity, as they are rather magnificent creatures. Beautiful, even.”

“Not to landowners or anyone with livestock. They're dangerous to lives and livelihoods.”

“Trust you to put a price on it.”

“No, I didn't,” Hardy snapped. “Don't make me push you into a pile of desecrated sheep. You know I don't give a toss about money.”

“Just duty,” Jamie said. “Oh, the trials of the responsible son, bounded by honor and loyalty and—”

“Last warning,” Hardy told him, and his brother fell silent. He looked around the hills again. “I can't see any design in it. No pattern.”

“You want to give it some sort of significance besides general horror? Anyone seeing this would be upset, though McKinney's more worried about his finances than the other implications. If you're right and this is the work of someone human—”

“I am,” Hardy said, unable to shake that conviction. He knew with the kind of certainty he should only have if he'd been here to witness the carnage that a human had done this. A man, most likely. “You were in town yesterday. Was anyone behaving oddly? Was there talk of anything strange?”

“Besides a few ladies who were not making a secret of their extramarital desires?” Jamie asked, grimacing. “No. I was rather put off by how forward they were, but I suppose it's a different world here.”

“Half the people we know assume you had some new woman in each place you went, and you're going to react to a few of them suggesting they'd be interested in that here?”

Jamie frowned. “Should Ellie be worried about all those women going after you? After all, you're the laird, not me. They should be wanting to have your affections if not your children.”

Hardy shook his head. “You've more appeal, and as it stands, your children are more likely to inherit than mine.”

“Ellie could still have children.”

“Not when she—that's not the issue. Why are we even discussing this?” Hardy asked. “Look at where we are. This is unnatural. It's not the only thing that is.”

“Something is rotten in the state of Dùn Ùine,” Jamie said, ducking out of Hardy's reach as he did, laughing. Hardy glared at him, and he tried to compose himself. “Sorry. Inappropriate. Not a bad use of that line, though.”

“Don't think you're clever.”

“Oh, I know I am, very, very clever,” Jamie said with a grin. That fell away as he looked back at the sheep. “And I'm afraid someone else might be, too.”

* * *

“Daisy?”

She looked up at the sound of Ellie's voice, forcing a smile. She wasn't sure she wanted to face her stepmother right now. She was too embarrassed by how she'd reacted when Rose asked her if she was pregnant and Ellie said she wasn't. It shouldn't matter. She knew she'd never have any siblings years ago, back when her mother was still with them, and after she wasn't, her father had seemed like he'd never marry again.

Ellie had come, and Daisy hadn't really thought that the way they fought was anything good at first, but the more they did it, the more she realized some of it was done out of actual affection. She hadn't been that surprised when her father said they were getting married, and it was done without a lot of fuss, not changing much of the way things were. And they were happy, it was fine, so it wasn't like anyone needed a baby or anything.

“I'm fine.”

“Sweetheart, I don't think you are,” Ellie said, coming over to sit down beside her. “You were pretty upset when you left the table. I... I think I should have told you it's not very likely your father and I would ever have... I mean... we're just not going to have children together.”

Daisy winced. “I know that. It's not—everything is different here, with him being the laird. They treat us different. Give us titles, act like we're something we're not.”

“It has definitely been... different,” Ellie agreed, and Daisy frowned at her. “I just... I didn't want you getting upset about something that none of us has any real control over. I... I think I'm a bit past that, you know. Kids.”

“Goats?” Daisy asked. “Ellie, we don't have any goats.”

“I think you must have gotten your sense of humor from your father,” Ellie said with a bit of a grimace. “That wasn't funny.”

It hadn't been a joke, but Daisy was uncomfortable enough without trying to explain that. “It would have been nice, not being alone.”

Ellie frowned. “I didn't think you wanted to have any siblings.”

Daisy stared at her, not sure how she could think that. Not after the conversations they'd had. Not after Ellie herself had promised her that she would never be alone again. That had to be wrong. How had Ellie forgotten? Could Ellie be forgetting a lot of things? Was that why she was fighting with her father all the time? Was that it? Could an illness do that?

“What is it?”

“Nothing,” Daisy told her. Ellie didn't seem to believe her, but she'd rather ask her uncle about all this before she explained any of it to Ellie. She had to be wrong, but if she wasn't, Ellie didn't even remember it, so there was no point.

“I don't think it is,” Ellie said. “I'm sorry I've disappointed you, and I know it isn't easy here. I've had a hard time myself. This is not what I imagined it would be like.”

“Do you still love him?”

Ellie swallowed. “I... I still feel the same about him as I did before.”

That wasn't what Daisy had asked, and she couldn't help feeling a bit sick at her stepmother's words. Was Ellie going to leave them, too? Or was that part of whatever was wrong with her memory? Maybe it wasn't an illness. Maybe she hated it here so much she wanted to go. Or maybe she'd never loved Daisy's father at all and wasn't going to pretend anymore. 

Daisy didn't want to stay down here any longer. “I'm going to my room.”

“Wait,” Ellie said. “You don't have to go—”

“I want to be alone,” Daisy said, and Ellie let her go, again proving something was wrong there. She'd have to talk to her uncle as soon as he was home, but she was afraid it was something much worse than Ellie being a bit sick.

* * *

“I take it your conversation with Daisy didn't go well,” Rose said as Ellie joined her in the foyer. “I thought the two of you were good friends, seeing as you were her governess before you married her father.”

Ellie blinked, and Rose thought for a second she didn't remember that, which was rather strange. She supposed Jamie could have had it wrong, but he'd told her his brother had done that thing that novels were so fond of, marrying his daughter's governess. He thought it was funny, and after seeing the two of them bickering, Rose had agreed. Still, how could Ellie forget years of raising Daisy and that kind of unusual courtship?

Not that Rose's had been ordinary. One day, Jamie had come into her life and taken her hand, urging her to run. She had, and sometimes it felt like they still were.

“I think I've managed to muck everything up,” Ellie admitted. “Are the two of them not back yet? They were gone before I made it down to breakfast, and it looks like the sun's about to set.”

Rose nodded. “I haven't seen them yet, but I don't know how far it is to the McKinney place from here. Jamie was in a rush to be off—I think he figured Alec would leave him behind if he didn't—so he barely told me anything before he left.”

Ellie frowned. “No one told me anything.”

“I suppose he would have, if you were awake,” Rose told her. She gave her another look. “Are you sure you're not sick?”

“Yes,” Ellie said, sounding a bit annoyed. Rose gave her a look, but before she could say anything, the doors opened. 

She turned to see Jamie with his brother. As soon as he saw her, he grinned, hurrying over to her side. She smiled herself as he neared her, giggling when he picked her up off the ground. He was rather silly, but she loved that about him, this playful side. He was such a child sometimes, but then she was, too, and she would rather be with him than anywhere else in the world.

“I think the best part of going away is coming back to you,” Jamie told her, holding her close. “Not that I want to go away from you, ever, and it's far better to go _with_ you, but this is nice. Coming home to you.”

“I think I prefer going with you, too,” she told him as he set her back down.

“Doubt you would have enjoyed this trip,” Alec said, shaking his head at them as if he disapproved.

“Someone did make rather a large and disgusting mess of half a flock of sheep,” Jamie admitted with a grimace. “Bits of them scattered about the hillside. And I do mean bits.”

Rose gave him a look, and he nodded with a small shudder. Ellie frowned, going over to Alec's side and touching his arm. He looked at her, and Rose wanted to flinch herself seeing it, watching him pull away from the slightest touch.

“Wild animals?” Ellie asked. “They called you out to look at a wild animal attack?”

Alec frowned. “Why would you find that so surprising? A threat to the livestock is a threat to everyone in the area. Any predator bold enough to go after a flock of sheep that close to town could target a villager next.”

“No, that makes sense,” she said. “I just... you investigating that. It's... a bit of a switch, that's all. I can hear you saying something about rural—it's nothing. Forget I said anything.”

Alec continued to watch her, wary, as if she'd said something very wrong, but Rose couldn't tell what it was. Jamie moved his arm around her waist, and she was glad he was standing there when his brother spoke.

“It wasn't a wild animal,” Alec said. “That kind of destruction and waste, that's human, not a creature that attacks for food and survival. This was done to scare or intimidate or even just for someone's idea of... fun.”

Ellie tensed. “Please tell me that's not happening here. I mean, they say many killers start on animals, but here? Now?”

Rose felt Jamie's hold on her shift, like he was trying to get her behind him. 

“Ellie, how do you know anything about that?” Jamie asked, and Rose thought he sounded rather suspicious of her. This was not good, none of it was. “Why would you say that? I confess, there is a part of me that finds the statement you made rather... logical, and it seems familiar, in a sense, like I've heard it before, but I don't see how that can be, and why should you know of such things?”

“If this is because I'm a woman—” Ellie stopped herself. “I must have heard it somewhere myself. I don't know. This shouldn't be happening. Not murder. Not again. Not here.”

Alec hesitated for a moment, and then he pulled her close against him. “So far, it's only been livestock. A lot of sheep, and I've no doubt they suffered, but strictly speaking, no murder, not yet. This isn't like before. It's not Joe. Not anything like him.”

She shuddered. Rose turned back to Jamie, but he shook his head, just as in the dark as she was about all of this. She wanted to ask, but if it upset Ellie this much, maybe it should wait. Then again, there was the whole sheep thing.

“What are we going to do about the sheep, though?”

“Oh, McKinney's already at work cleaning up the remains,” Jamie told her. “That won't be a problem for long, though I suppose he'll spread the story around, too. No real way of avoiding that, I don't think. It's unfortunate, since we don't need a panic, but it should help that McKinney thinks we're both daft, so I doubt he'll pass along our theory about it being a human killer.”

Rose grimaced. “You're both sure of that, though?”

“I am,” Alec answered, and his confidence made her shiver.


	6. Time for Talks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of the death of the sheep leaves the entire group unsettled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this would be why this story had to be told very separate from Child of Time. It's too long. I keep pushing back a scene I meant to have after the whole sheep thing came in, and it's still not in the chapter because it didn't feel right.
> 
> This did try and imitate Broadchurch in showing the emotional impact of things, a bit, though I know it doesn't come close to that level.

* * *

“What will you do?” Rose asked when they were alone in their room. Jamie looked over at her, trying not to grimace. Trouble was, he didn't know, and he'd been hoping she wouldn't ask about that right away. He needed time to find some sort of idea or plan, since he and Alec hadn't managed to do that the whole way back to Dùn Ùine. They'd gone back and forth about it, but there was no sign of who had been the one to harm the sheep.

Anyone could have done it.

“Well, I suppose we look around the town tomorrow,” Jamie said, frowning. “We didn't find anything we could use on the hill, so we'll just have to wait and see who is acting strange.”

Rose looked at him, doubt clear on her lovely face. She was worried, and he knew that she should be. They all were, except perhaps Martha. He thought she was angry, since all of them had decided against eating the dinner she'd already started. He couldn't blame her, but while he usually had been able to eat no matter what was happening around him, this time he couldn't.

Those sheep...

He shuddered, and Rose crossed over to him, wrapping her arms around him. She held him, and he sighed, wishing he didn't feel so helpless. Or perhaps he should say useless. He'd been there, seen the damage, but there was nothing to be done about it, not a thing that could be set against all this.

“All we can do is wait.”

He nodded. “Yes, I'm afraid so. I don't like it, but I can't think of anything else. All those things I know, that I can do, and I can do nothing now. Absolutely nothing. This... I can't stop them, Alec can't, and it is likely to stay that way until someone else dies.”

“I don't understand. They've never had anything like this happen here before, have they? Why would this start now?”

“Alec has come back, but I can't see why that would change anything. Not that he is always the easiest to get along with, he's also not the sort that a ritual animal sacrifice would scare. Should have seen him. He was like a rock. Steady, unflappable. Just stood there, looking it over like it was something he saw every day.”

“That doesn't sound like a good thing, Jamie.”

“Oh, I didn't mean it like that,” he said, turning to face her. He touched her cheek. “Rose, my brother is a very good man. He's just... seen darkness before, and it doesn't make him want to run. Alec stays, even when it's difficult. I don't. I run as far as I can, but he doesn't. He never does.”

“You admire him.”

“No more than I admire you,” he told her, and she shook her head.

“Oh, don't try and flatter me now. You can't distract me like that,” she said, pulling away from him. She sighed. “I don't like to see you like this. And it worries me because I can tell you're worried. You're trying not to be, and you're trying not to let me see it, but I can. I do.”

He smiled, a genuine one that time. “You know me so well.”

“Yes, though it's not just you. I could see that this got to your brother as well,” Rose said. “And what was all that about Joe? Who is Joe? Was Ellie really involved in a murder before? Was your brother?”

“Oh,” Jamie said, wincing. He went over to the bed and sat down, patting the spot beside him. Rose frowned at him. “Come sit. You'll want to for this.”

“Now you're starting to scare me.”

Jamie shook his head. “It was over and done with a long time ago. Well, as much as something like this ever is. Don't start thinking that Alec or Ellie are something they're not. Neither of them are killers, even if Alec was in the war. It is something else I haven't told you, and not because I didn't trust you, but you know how I am with unpleasant things. I'd rather not talk about them if I can avoid it, and this time I did.”

Rose gave him a look as she took the spot beside him. “I do know that, but I don't like it.”

“I know,” he said, taking her hand and covering it with his. “Alec isn't the only one who was married before. Ellie was as well.”

“And that was Joe.”

Jamie nodded. “It was. She and Joe had a child together. Tom. Oh, I should say that Alec was, in fact, her neighbor at the time. That does matter, as it kind of explains... well, how they met. It wasn't under the best of circumstances.”

Rose nodded. “Yeah, I got that. What are you not telling me? Did someone go into Ellie's house and kill her husband? And her son? I mean, I've never seen the boy, so... Oh, God. He must have. He killed her little boy? That's horrible.”

Jamie pulled her into his arms. “It's worse than that, but I almost don't want to tell you.”

“I'm not sure I want you to, either,” Rose admitted. “Just... hold me. For now, hold me, and when we're done with that, we'll try and figure out what we're going to do.”

* * *

“Daisy, I need to speak with you.”

She looked up at the door, seeing her stepmother skulking away from her father. He looked after her with a frown and sighed, clearly torn between going after her and what he'd come to the door to do. Daisy hoped they weren't fighting again, but then again, she wondered if maybe they should be. If Ellie was really forgetting as much as she seemed to be, then someone had to do something about it, and that someone was going to have to be her father.

“What is it?” Daisy asked, wondering if he had come to tell her what was wrong with Ellie.

“Something happened today that you should know about,” he said, coming into the room. He stood at the foot of her bed, looking uncomfortable. “It wasn't in town, and I'm not telling you this to scare you, but someone... they killed a lot of sheep.”

Daisy stared at him. “What?”

Her father grimaced. “That—well, it's true. It's what they did. And that sounds strange and a little wrong, but it doesn't change what happened. A local farmer asked us—asked me, your uncle came with against my wishes—to see what had been done to his sheep. We did.”

Daisy nodded. “All right, but why are you so upset? I mean, it's awful, sheep dying, I don't like when anyone dies, but you're acting like they were an old friend of yours or something, and it's not like you. Not at all.”

“Daisy, this wasn't some wild animal attacking a single sheep and killing it. This is... about someone slaughtering sheep as some kind of warning or message. I'm not sure what it was. I just know it wasn't an animal hunting for survival. It was something much worse, and I want you to be very careful. Don't go into town alone. Tell us if anyone you meet acts at all suspicious.”

“You sound really worried.”

“I am,” her father admitted. “I don't like knowing that someone would could do this is out there. They're... wrong. Whatever they are, it's wrong and dangerous, and I don't want anything happening to you or anyone else here. I'm mostly concerned with everyone in Dùn Ùine, but the town's at risk, too. I know that.”

She swallowed. “I'll be careful. I promise. I don't even want to go back to town.”

He frowned. “What happened?”

“It's nothing.”

He shook his head. “No, it's not. Tell me.”

She glared at him, but it didn't last. She sighed, giving in and hoping she could make this end somehow. “I just... People only see me as the Maid of Dùn Ùine, and that's not even what I am because I can't inherit. I don't want to be just your heir anyway. I want to be my own person, but all they see when they look at me is your daughter. They ask me to ask you things or think they can use me to get at your land.”

“Then they're bloody idiots,” he said, crossing the last few steps to her side. He wrapped his arms around her. “You are so much more than that, so much better than me. Ignore them. The ones that matter, they'll figure that out, and the rest aren't worth thinking about.”

“You can say that. You're the laird.”

“I'm nothing. You're everything to me.”

“You've got Ellie.”

“No, I haven't,” he muttered, and she looked at him. “Never mind that now. I—oh, damn it. I haven't spoken to Martha about any of this besides telling her we weren't eating. Would you go to her? I have to try and talk to Ellie. I didn't handle telling her well—worse than with you, and I have to fix it somehow. I don't even know that I can, but with all that has gone wrong between us lately...”

“I understand,” Daisy said. “I can talk to Martha. You go on and talk to Ellie.”

* * *

“Ellie?”

She didn't look up as he entered their room, and he couldn't help remembering the conversation he'd just had with Daisy and wincing. He knew he was terrible at this sort of thing, and he'd probably scared Daisy far more than she'd let on, which wasn't his intention. He didn't like leaving her, either, but if he waited much longer to talk to Ellie, he wouldn't be able to at all. She'd been withdrawing from him for the past week, and he knew something was wrong.

Was it her memory? Or was it something far worse, something tied to what had happened to those sheep? Was that insane to think, or was he right to question it?

He didn't know. He saw things sometimes, things that disagreed with what he knew and where he was, and it was not just his dreams but also waking moments, and maybe she had those, too, but she seemed to deny it every time he tried to get an answer from her about it.

“I thought you'd be longer with Daisy.”

“She knows. She didn't ask a lot of questions. I think she understands, though, and she hates it here, so that helps.”

Ellie turned back to frown at him. “What makes you say that? She was happy until—well, she and I had an unpleasant conversation after Rose asked if I was pregnant, but that's not—”

“Jamie never told her.”

“What? I don't—”

“About you, about what happened the night Tom died,” Hardy said, and she stilled, staring at him. He grimaced, going over to her side. “I should have known he wouldn't. Jamie doesn't allow himself to think about the bad stuff if he can help it, and he won't talk about it, either. Not that I talk, but I don't pretend it doesn't exist, either. That's not an excuse. It's just... fact. He didn't tell her about... about you losing your bairn.”

“Fred?” Ellie asked, her voice a low whisper as she grabbed hold of the dresser.

“That was what you said you intended to call him,” Hardy said, going to her side. “I know this—all of this—brings up difficult memories for you. I didn't want that. Not that it's right not to tell you any of it. You could be in danger, and I'm not trying to scare you, but I don't—there is no good way of saying any of this. Bloody hell.”

She swallowed. “You don't have to spare me. I'm not that fragile. You don't really think that about me, do you? That I'll just break like—”

“God, no, but it's not like it's going to be easy for you to hear us talking about killers and fearing everyone. Anyone in town could have done that, and we won't know who unless they start behaving oddly or they kill someone else. It's like your own nightmare come to life.”

“It's not my nightmare. I never dreamed about someone killing sheep.”

“You know what I mean,” Hardy said, almost snapping at her. Now she was irritating him, trying to deny she was upset by this. “I mean Joe. I mean the bastard that was your husband taking both your children from you. I suppose Daisy's not yours, and she can almost take care of herself, should it come to that, but as I recall, that was why you didn't think much of my offer to hire you. You didn't want anything to do with children after losing yours.”

She winced. “This is different. It's not... not someone I trusted.”

He crossed the last few steps to her side. She tensed, and he lifted her chin, getting her to look at him. “Do you still trust me?”

She hesitated, and he felt that like a kick to the gut. “I... I'm fine. You don't need to worry about me. Really.”

“That's not what I asked,” he said, turning away from her and trying to compose himself. Anger warred with hurt for the dominant emotion in him. How could she say she was fine? He remembered the way he'd found her that night, covered in blood—hers and her husband's. Joe had tried to kill her when she'd tried to save her son, and she'd lost the baby because of him. Hardy had been awake, heard the screams, and when others shunned her, he'd offered her employment when she'd healed. 

He'd regretted it almost from the first, arguing with her constantly, but in the end, she was indispensable. He still feared losing her, and he kept thinking he already had.

He shook his head. Fine. She was warned. She didn't want him, and he should probably go find the notes the last laird had kept on the townsfolk, see if there was anything from the past that might tie to this or give him some idea who might be acting strangely.

“Wait,” Ellie said, and he looked back at her with a frown. “I shouldn't have—It's stupid. I don't know why I didn't just say it. I do trust you. I have for a long time. Even when everything around me was wrong and you were a total wanker, I trusted you. And I still do.”

“You have an odd way of showing it,” he told her, still frowning. Had she actually called him a _wanker?_ Not that her insulting him was anything new, but that one was rather... different. “It's going to be a long night—probably several of them—as we wait for whoever this is to make a move.”

She nodded. “Do you—what are you thinking? Is there anything besides waiting we can do?”

“I thought I might look for something in the records here, but I doubt it will give us much. It's just the only thing I can think of right now.”

“I'll help you.”

He stared at her. “You'll what?”

“Hardy, if you think I'm going to sit still while some killer is out there playing games, you're a bigger idiot than I thought you were. I'll help you look through the records. I need to do something, same as you.”

“You are a very strange woman.”

“I know,” she agreed with a sad sort of smile, and he thought for all her brave act, she was a bit close to tears. He reached over to her, touching her cheek. “We should—”

“I'll stay until you fall asleep,” he said, and she frowned at him. “I know you think if you wear yourself out with the records you can avoid the nightmares, but they'll still come. They always do. There's no avoiding them.”

“That doesn't mean I don't want to help.”

He grimaced. “My father was not a pleasant man. You don't want to know what he thought of anyone, least of all me.”

“It won't change my opinion of you.”

“Something already has.”


	7. Time for Questions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A real investigation into the sheep gets a very rocky start.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had meant to put in the scene with Martha and Ellie two chapters back. It just didn't fit, over and over again, and the tone shifted on it a couple times, but it's necessary they had at least part of that talk.

* * *

“Ellie?”

“I figured you'd be awake,” Ellie said, and Martha nodded, coming back into the control room. She couldn't help thinking about what Daisy had told her. Alec hadn't said much when he informed her he and Ellie weren't eating, and that had gone for the Doctor and Rose, too, even if neither of them said it. They hadn't come out of their room since he got back.

Daisy'd been stuck telling Martha about the butchered sheep and how her father thought it wasn't an animal that did it, poor girl. Martha didn't know why he'd sent her, but she hadn't seen anyone else all evening until she finally went back to the TARDIS.

She hated that room in the servant's part of Dùn Ùine, and there was no sleeping there, especially not when she was afraid this was worse than even the very paranoid Alec knew.

“Is it them, do you think?” Ellie asked. “I don't see why they'd kill sheep if it's about getting the Doctor, but maybe they're trying to trap him.”

“I don't know. The Doctor didn't tell us enough about them to be sure. He did create a list of things to remember while he and everyone else were human, but that doesn't help much when we don't know our enemy.”

“Or our own lives,” Ellie muttered, shaking her head. She sighed, leaning over the console. “You said that there's a list of things for us to remember? Can we watch that? Something, anything. Maybe there's more there, something that could explain this sheep attack.”

“It was a list of care instructions,” Martha said, going over to the console. “I think he made the list while Rose was still unconscious and before we ran into you, so most of this is about him, no real mentions of what to do for his son or... granddaughter.”

“You do realize he's over nine hundred years old,” Ellie said. “That's plenty of time for grandchildren, no matter what he looks like.”

Martha sighed. “Of course I do. It's still strange for me because before this he never mentioned family. Not once.”

“Not that I should probably tell you this, but I think you've met him before,” Ellie said. “Where is this list? I have to stop letting Hardy or the Doctor do all the work when we're in the TARDIS.”

“What do you mean, I've met him before?” Martha asked, frowning. She knew she hadn't. She'd remember a man who looked that much like the Doctor and had that accent. The Doctor had matched it here, sounding as much like a native as his son did.

“Royal Hope Hospital. On the moon,” Ellie said. “He said it was a long story, and the Doctor would have made you forget to preserve the timelines.”

“What?”

“Technically, Hardy hasn't been born yet. Not in the Doctor's timeline. He was taken to the past and grew up like a normal human—more or less,” Ellie said. She took a deep breath and let it out. “It's complicated. It's also why the TARDIS apparently crossed paths with you when Hardy was fully aware of what he is and not before, since otherwise he'd have fought against all of this. As it is, he knew this was part of the timeline and stuck to it.”

“Don't you wish he hadn't?” Martha couldn't help asking. “I mean, wouldn't it have been easier if he hadn't?”

“If only,” Ellie muttered. “It would spare me trying to pretend that we're married, yes. It would also screw up a lot of lives. As much as I want to change what happened, I know I can't. Or at least I try to believe that. It's difficult in the world of time travel.”

“Yeah, I had a few issues with it myself. First time I went out, I wanted to sell Shakespeare's lost play to the future,” Martha admitted. She grimaced with the memory. “I keep thinking I've got a handle on all of it, on the aliens and the time travel, and then something like this happens.”

“You have that video for us?”

“Yeah, here,” Martha said. “I swear he said something about not eating pears.”

“Pears?”

Martha shrugged. “I don't pretend to understand Time Lords. The last part does say that in the case of an emergency, use the watch and wake them up, but we don't actually know that it's the Family, and waking them before then could mean this is all for nothing. If the Family gets hold of even one of them, the universe is doomed.”

“Which is why there has to be something about the Family in here somewhere.”

* * *

“You're up early,” Jamie observed, walking into the study to see his brother behind the desk, a stack of ledgers in front of him and a page of notes under his hand. If he'd actually progressed through all the books, he'd been in here since well before daylight, and the burned out candle seemed proof of that.

“I don't sleep.”

Jamie nodded, sitting down across from his brother. He supposed that Alec had more to keep him awake than anyone else, between his duties as laird, the attack, and his domestic upheaval. His own dreams had been unsettling, and Jamie found even Rose's company and support was not enough to ease his mind. He'd gone back to the stuff of nightmares, and not the ones he would have thought would come after the slaughter he'd seen.

He had seen slaughter, yes, but he had seen it at the hands of those metal creatures. Daleks. They'd killed entire planets, and he could not stop seeing it. He saw death in unthinkable ways, armies of unnatural beings, and his own crimes.

“Rose and I spoke late into the night, trying to determine some way of finding who might have done this,” Jamie admitted. He loved that she'd pushed him, ignoring her discomfort and trying to find a solution, though they'd fallen asleep long before that happened. “Most of my ideas led nowhere. We don't know the town well enough or the people. We have no idea what this killer is doing with this message. It isn't clear. Is it just about fear? Or is it more specific, and we just don't know it yet? Should we know it?”

Alec picked up his cup, sitting back with it. “I don't know. If it was directed at one of us—at me, since I'd be the most likely target given my position—it didn't seem obvious. No words, no symbols, just random death.”

“Only it isn't random,” Jamie disagreed, wishing he'd thought to get some tea of his own. “We know it was done deliberately. Those sheep were left for a reason. We just don't know what it is yet.”

“Agreed.”

Jamie prepared himself to ask an unpleasant question. He had no desire to add to his brother's troubles, but the possibility could not be ignored. “Do you think this is targeted at you? I know you said that there was no obvious sign, but could it really be anyone else?”

Alec gave him a long, hard look. “Daisy has apparently rebuffed some advances that were made assuming she would inherit. Martha may be valued in this home, considered a friend and even family, but her skin color is not acceptable to some. You have your share of detractors, including some women who would resent Rose as the woman who actually managed to become your wife in spite of your wanderlust. There are still some who believe that Ellie lied about Joe's actions that night, that she was behind all the deaths. And the sheep were McKinney's. Perhaps someone disliked him enough to ruin his livelihood. Would you like me to continue?”

“Don't be like that,” Jamie said. He disliked thinking of it in those terms, even if he could see each of the points Alec had raised. He'd only given one reason for each person, but there could be several more, and that was a frightening prospect, especially when this killer might not even need a reason. “You've a dark mind, and I suppose we need it now, since I don't see how we can find someone as twisted as this without it.”

“Your mind is just as dark,” Alec reminded him, putting the cup down. He picked up his pen, added to his note, and dropped it again, shaking his head.

“It might be,” Jamie agreed, thinking of the dreams he'd had. He shifted in his chair, trying to force the thoughts from his head. He couldn't let them control him, not when they had a more immediate threat, and he would not lose anyone in his family to this. “You don't think this is about... him, is it?”

“What, Father?” Alec snorted. “Why bother waiting this long? Why not do something when he was still alive? It's no secret we didn't get along with him. We avoided the bastard for years. Why seek revenge on one of us for something he did?”

Jamie shook his head. “I couldn't say. I dislike the idea of being the target for his sins. I'll take any punishment I'm due for something I did, but to be blamed for him—no. That I won't accept. And you're not to blame for what he did, either.”

“It's unlikely it's about him anyway,” Alec said, rising from his chair. “The place to start is McKinney. They were his sheep. Who has a grudge against him? Why? Would it go as far as this?”

“Excellent questions. Let's go put them to the town, shall we?”

* * *

“Hardy?”

He turned back to look at her, and Ellie almost winced. She could see the accusation in his eyes. He knew she'd gotten out of bed as soon as she thought he was asleep, and she was only now getting back in from the TARDIS—just as he was about to leave with the Doctor.

She shouldn't have said anything. If she hadn't, she wouldn't have to face that look, knowing she was probably betraying her guilt. Not that she was cheating on him, not at all, but she did know the truth of all of this, and keeping that from him was far from easy.

She didn't want to think about what it would be like after this was over and he had his own memories back.

“Did you need something?”

She swallowed. “I just... you're off to town already?”

“Sun's been up for hours,” he said. “As have you.”

She should have known he'd say it. Hardy didn't pull punches, not unless he was telling her that her husband killed an eleven year old boy. He'd been almost gentle then, and she'd been more freaked out by that than all his yelling.

“I couldn't sleep,” she admitted. “Think there's a bit of a club for that around here.”

The Doctor smiled at her, but Hardy's face remained impassive. She wished this wasn't so difficult. If she could just tell him she was trying to find out if the sheep were a sign that the Family was here and ready to attack, then they could undo everything with the watches and get them back to where they should be. No more threats to the universe, no more paradoxes, no more fake marriages.

“I'd like to go with you.”

Hardy stared at her. “You want to come? Why the bloody hell would you want that?”

“Because I'm your partner,” she admitted, that part coming honestly enough. She was. She was used to working closely with him, and even though there'd been that break while she was in Devon and then after Sandbrook was over, she was used to spending her time with him investigating something, even if now it always seemed to be alien in origin.

He frowned, and she could see his mind working as he tried to find a way to tell her no. She didn't know why he was bothering about her feelings—no, she did. This version of Hardy did still love her, and judging from what he'd done for Tess despite her cheating on him, he was doing the same with Ellie. She hated knowing that. She was not the same person. She'd been faithful to Joe. He was the one that betrayed them all.

“It might be useful to have the ladies do some talking with the women of the town,” the Doctor began. “They'd be able to go places we wouldn't be welcome, gain confidences we can't. In fact—”

“Don't say it. Daisy does not go near this town until we know what this threat is,” Hardy snapped. He studied Ellie for a moment. “I doubt I could stop you if you were set on it.”

“You know you couldn't.”

“That doesn't mean I'm helping you do it, either,” he said, and she frowned. “Anyone else would not want any part of this after what Joe did. You're sitting there pushing to be a part of it. I don't like this. It doesn't feel right.”

“Alec, people cope in different ways—”

“Don't you bloody start with me,” he snapped at the Doctor. “Something is wrong here, and we all know it. You want to accept the lies so you don't have to face that, fine. That's not something I can do.”

“I'm not,” the Doctor said. “I'm—I agree there's something wrong. I don't agree that it's all Ellie's fault. You're being equally unreasonable. I am glad to have Rose's help whenever she offers it to me, so why are you so resistant to Ellie's help?”

Hardy looked at her. “You want to tell him where you were all night?”

She winced. She couldn't say it, couldn't tell him that she'd been in the TARDIS. Damn it, she'd screwed up again, but then he could be a little more trusting for once.

“That is what I thought,” Hardy said, turning and leaving them both behind.

* * *

“I think they're both being stupid,” Rose said. “Men. It's just what they are.”

Ellie gave her a look, and Rose tried to smile at her. She knew she wasn't very reassuring, but then Alec wasn't the only one concerned by Ellie's behavior. Only Martha seemed to have no problem with it, but then Martha wasn't exactly in a place to say what she thought about all of this. Rose wasn't really used to servants, and she liked to think Martha was more like family, but she did do things for them no one else did, and it wasn't equal, not like it should be.

Rose tried not to think about it. Her life with Jamie wasn't about cooking or cleaning, and she'd almost gotten used to having hotel workers do all that for them as they traveled about. It wasn't that different here except they spent a lot more time with Martha.

And Rose liked to hope she was still a friend even if Martha worked for them.

“He's infuriating is what he is,” Ellie grumbled. “It's not like he slept the whole night through, either. Bloody hypocrite.”

Rose looked at her. “Well, to be fair, if Jamie had gotten up in the middle of the night, I'd be a bit worried. Not that I'd accuse him of cheating, but it's not that big of a house. If you weren't with him or Daisy, where were you?”

“Outside.”

“All night?”

“No, but... I just needed to check on something, and I did,” Ellie said. “It's not the crime everyone seems to think it is.”

“I'm not saying it is,” Rose told her. “Still, from what Jamie says of his first wife and the way you two bicker... I think Alec might be insecure when it comes to you, so he worries far more than he should. Not to mention that overprotectiveness seems to run in the family. Jamie's a right nightmare sometimes. You should have seen us when we were traveling. He was fretting every time I was out of his sight. Like he thought I'd get carried off any second.”

Ellie sighed. “This whole business with the sheep has everyone on edge, and it only happened yesterday. He's going to be impossible until he knows who did it. I've seen him like this before. He won't sleep. He won't eat. He'll lash out. He'll be insufferable.”

“Then you should be glad Jamie gets to bear the brunt of his temper this go round,” Rose said. Ellie looked at her and then laughed. “See? You know I'm right. Those two deserve each other sometimes.”

“All the time,” Ellie said, but then she shook her head. “It's strange to think he's actually... more like himself right now.”

Rose nodded. “I know what you mean. I think I should be worried about how Jamie seems to seek out danger and go right for where there's trouble. I'm just as bad sometimes. I don't even know why. I just see something that doesn't fit or I wander too far and find myself right in it.”

“I thought I wanted it,” Ellie admitted. “Right up until that day on the beach...”

Images of a beach assailed Rose, her eyes blurred by wind and tears that weren't there, and she stopped, shivering and trying to push it out of her head even as she heard words in her voice, a poor translation and a sense of loss.

That had come like the dreams, like the golden light, but it wasn't true. That was not her, and she had not lost Jamie like that.

“Rose?”

“Sorry. I... I just got this image in my head. It... It upset me.”

“I can tell.”

“I'm fine.”

Ellie shook her head. “No, you're not. We're none of us fine.”


	8. Time for Townsfolk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor, Hardy, Ellie, and Rose take their investigation to town.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had this wonderful idea where I was going to fix a problem by bringing in Tess, of all people, and it amused me to no end when I realized just how much that wouldn't work. It was funny in a sort of "oh, hell, what's wrong with you?" sort of way.
> 
> At least I finally got unstuck on this one.

* * *

“You know, just because McKinney didn't impress you any doesn't mean that he's got every enemy in the universe,” Jamie observed, and Alec gave him a look. A part of Jamie wanted to laugh, but the rest of him was concerned. Alec's gruff manner of dealing with people didn't ingratiate them with anyone, and he sounded like he was looking for a killer, not trying to be at all subtle about it. They weren't meant to cause a panic or have the neighbors turning against each other. They needed everyone to cooperate, not decide their laird was an unforgivable bastard and never speak to him again.

Alec had to know that he needed to keep his standing among them. Yes, it meant being more sociable than his brother was as a general rule, but that didn't make it impossible.

“I never said that he had lots of enemies.”

“You're treating him like he does. The idea was to learn _if_ he did, not _assume_ that he did,” Jamie reminded him. “I'm supposed to be the one with no manners. I'm the second son. I can get away with being rude.”

“No, I get to be rude because I'm the one with the unwanted title. You get to be charming because you have to have your hand out.”

Jamie grimaced. “Please tell me you're actually like this because of Ellie. I don't remember doing anything that would upset you today. I know we don't always agree, but this is a bit much, even for you.”

Alec rubbed his temple. “Why the hell do I even care? Why should that woman matter to me at all? She's just an annoyance, has been since I met her.”

“That's not true. You met her when she was fighting off her husband who'd just killed their son, and you always told me you admired how strong she'd been under the circumstances, even if she did infuriate you after she came to work for you,” Jamie said. He thought his words over, frowning a bit. They didn't seem like his own, but then he was supposed to be quoting someone. “You don't know that this is anything like Tess.”

“Something feels _wrong,”_ Alec said. “I can sense it. There's something here that's not right, and as much as there's a part of me that says ignore it, I can't. And the more that Ellie behaves strangely, the worse that feeling gets. My memories of us... Even now when I look at them and they try to slip away from me, I still get the sense that what I felt was stronger than what she did, and I bloody well hate it.”

Jamie studied his brother, aware that his own memories of Rose had a similar habit of fading a bit when he thought about them, full of feelings but no sharp details, factual moments that existed but were hard to revisit, though he was happy with his wife so it was easy to dismiss the sensation when he felt it and look away.

“Alec, if you're suggesting that something unnatural is happening here... you don't actually think it's something to do with Ellie, do you? I thought we agreed it was someone human who'd done the killing, and while that butchery is quite twisted, it's not the work of something spiritual or supernatural.”

“I didn't say it was, and don't go talking like that. You'll get the idea in everyone's head that my wife is some sort of... witch. She's not, but you never know how people will react or how superstitious this lot might be,” Alec said, frowning. He looked back at the street, and Jamie saw that they were being watched. Hard to avoid, he supposed, in a town this small when Alec was the laird, but it made him uneasy all the same. “We need to find the women.”

“We barely even started talking to the men. Let them do their work,” Jamie said. “We've got plenty of our own to do.”

Alec shook his head. He nodded to the woman at the far end of the street. “That one there. Every time I've come into town, she's been watching. The others only stared the first day or two. She's still watching us like she can't believe we're here.”

“I admit, we look a startling amount alike, so much so that we could pass for twins, but that shock should have faded by now,” Jamie agreed. He looked at his brother. “Is that the only reason you suspect her? Or is there something else going on in your brain that I should know?”

“I don't know what it is. Sometimes you just... have a sense about something. It's not supernatural. It's _instinct._ I look at her and know she knows something more than she's saying, and I want someone to talk to her. You've already said I'm not the one people talk to, so why not Rose?”

Jamie bit back saying something about Ellie. He would consider Rose best for the job, but then he was biased. “Fine, but after that, we need to talk to that gentleman right there. He's glaring at McKinney, and my instincts say that's worth knowing about.”

* * *

“I swear, if I have to hear one more person mention that town dance, I will scream,” Ellie said, feeling her sleepless night and her argument with Hardy, too tired to be faking polite with all these women who seemed to have no thought in their head beyond the party and the day's chores. She knew she'd probably be the same if she was actually from this time, but she wanted to believe she'd be more. She didn't think she could shut off her copper's brain any more than Hardy had, since she saw that in him despite the TARDIS altering his memories.

Even the Doctor still showed signs of who he had been before the arch, and he was the one that changed the most.

“It's the biggest thing around here, and at least it's not like a London season with all the parties and marriage hunting.”

Ellie grimaced. “At least we'd both be spared that, but it's like no one knows anything useful. Half the women we talked to don't even know about the sheep, and others told us that it was men's business if someone had a grudge against McKinney.”

“I think part of it has to do with the fact that we're strangers,” Rose admitted. She shook her head. “I'm almost sure of it—none of them likes that the laird and his brother married English women. They should have stayed here and done the proper thing, marrying some local Scottish lass. I don't think they had any idea what it was like for either of them under the old laird.”

Ellie looked over at her with a frown. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, you know Jamie. He rarely talks about the unpleasant stuff, and he does try to make it seem like it wasn't half as bad as it was sometimes, but he said enough. Alec and his father 'never got on' and they fought all the time.”

“And you think the laird was violent with them?” Ellie asked, thinking back to Hardy's words about wanting to escape his parents' bickering. Could it have been like that for him, and the TARDIS worked that into his memories as it had a lot of other things from his life?

Rose nodded. “Pretty sure. He won't say it, but yeah, I think so. If we were looking for someone with a grudge against the laird, we'd be forced to look in our own home. I'm glad this is about McKinney, not him.”

Ellie wasn't sure that any of what they knew of the former laird was true, but she nodded. She did want to find something here that could tell them what they were actually dealing with, so they could know if this was the Family or not. If it was, then maybe it was time to wake all the Time Lords up and get them back to normal.

“There you are,” Hardy said as she and Rose turned the corner. She stopped, startled, but she didn't miss the look that passed over his face.

“Ah, Rose,” the Doctors said, greeting her warmly. He pulled her close, holding her against him. “I missed you.”

“You're ridiculous,” Hardy muttered.

“And here I was going to whisper in her ear all the reasons she should help us with that woman you spotted,” the Doctor said. “You ruined the moment, grumpy.”

“What woman?” Ellie asked, going closer to Hardy. She couldn't help thinking of Susan Wright and all the trouble she'd caused when they were investigating Danny's murder and also during the trial. “What has she done? Do you think she knows something about the sheep, or is it something else?”

Hardy gave her a look, and she wondered what he was thinking. “She's down at the end of the street. Not sure what to think of her, but she's been watching us.”

Ellie turned. “What, her? The same one that's been giving me the stink eye every time I come to town?”

“She probably doesn't that you're from England,” Rose said. “Or maybe it's your hair. You don't even bother trying to hide how short you've got it cut.”

Ellie hadn't really thought about that. It would have been nice if the TARDIS had set them up in a time period where she would blend in a bit better. Rose's hair had grown a bit since they'd last seen her, and she could put hers up, but Ellie's curls barely worked to pin back, which stood out a bit here in the late nineteenth century.

“It's none of their concern who I marry or what her hair is like,” Hardy grumbled. “The hell do they know about it, anyway? It's your business what you do with your hair, and if you want to keep it short after what Joe did, they have no right to judge you.”

Ellie blinked, wondering what exactly the TARDIS had told him about that, then. She shook that off, trying to focus. “You think she might be involved in this?”

“That is what you two are going to find out,” the Doctor said with a grin. “If it is as you suspect and it's just about the English bit, that's not very helpful at all, but as Alec over here seems to be incapable of asking questions politely, it might be better if you start. Then if she does prove troublesome, she'll deserve whatever he does say to her.”

Hardy glared at him, and Ellie tried not to laugh.

“Right, then. We'll be off,” she said, tugging on Rose's arm. Then she stopped. “Oh, Hardy, do you think that this has anything to do with the former laird? Could people still be holding a grudge against him that would make them act out against you?”

He frowned at her. “It's possible. Right now we're trying to find out if it was about McKinney. It could be anyone, though, so don't discount the possibility. Just listen to what they tell you, watch for anything that seems out of the ordinary.”

“I know,” she told him, since he had lectured her on that more than once before. “I'll see you later.”

Impulsively, and because she knew that people were watching and they were in the middle of town, she stepped up and pressed a brief kiss to his cheek before dragging Rose off for their interview.

* * *

“Bloody hell that woman confuses me,” Hardy muttered, and Jamie laughed beside him. He ignored his brother, refusing to look over at Ellie before he went to find the man who'd been glaring at McKinney. He couldn't make sense of his wife's behavior, and he wasn't sure where to start. He'd never been good with people, and it was worse after Tess' betrayal, not even having Daisy helped with that. Still, he had thought their marriage was fine until they came here and Ellie became so erratic.

“I think we men are supposed to be confounded by the fair sex,” Jamie said, and Alec gave him a dark look. His brother was not helping matters, and Hardy needed to focus on finding the man who had killed those sheep. “You know what Shakespeare said about women—”

“Shakespeare was a bloody moron, and so is anyone who quotes him.”

“Oi, that's not—”

“Mr. Hadden,” Hardy called, walking up to the man. “A word with you, if you please.”

“Of course, Mr. Hardy. I could hardly refuse the laird of Dùn Ùine, now could I?” Hadden said, his voice full of sarcasm. “What can I do for you, my laird?”

Hardy looked at Jamie. If this was the time for charm, he was going to have to do it. Hardy didn't do charm on the best of days, and this man was asking for more than a few harsh words.

“I was the one that wanted to talk to you, Mr. Hadden,” Jamie said, giving him a smile that Hardy knew was false but seemed genuine to someone who didn't know him. “I was hoping you might tell me what you knew about sheep.”

“Sheep?”

“Well, yes,” Jamie said, looking a bit flustered at first, but then he smiled again like he'd just won something. “It's been a long time, you see, since my brother or I were on the land, and I was telling him he should consider them for the laird house, but he insists that they're the wrong sort of animal to raise on his land. I was hoping you could tell him what a fool he was.”

Hadden smiled back, and Hardy knew his brother had found the right tactic. “Of course, I'd be glad to. Anyone could raise sheep. They're simple enough animals, and you can use 'em for food or for the wool. Good flock. Good choice.”

“Dùn Ùine isn't large enough to support a flock,” Hardy said. “They'll overgraze and ruin the ground. McKinney has enough land to rotate the pasture. There's not enough around Dùn Ùine.”

“You're the biggest landholder about,” Hadden said, frowning. “Of course you've got the space.”

Hardy shook his head. “There's a large part of the grounds near the house that's full of overgrown trees, and another section where nothing grows at all.”

“Oh, that rubbish about the haunted copse. You're too sensible to be believing in that, aren't you, laird?”

“I didn't say I believed in it, only that I'm aware that nothing grows there,” Hardy disagreed. “It never has, not in my lifetime.”

“Maybe McKinney's just a better shepherd than you are,” Jamie said, and Hardy frowned. He wasn't a bloody shepherd at all. “What do you think, Hadden?”

“McKinney's an idiot,” Hadden said. “He wouldn't know a sheep from a goat.”

“Dislike him that much, do you?” Hardy asked, trying to decide if he thought Hadden was guilty of sheep slaughter.

“Never have.” Hadden studied him, suspicious. “Your memory that bad?”

“Excuse me?”

“I think there was something about a Hadden-McKinney feud,” Jamie said, and Hardy looked at him. He was making that up. He'd gone through their father's records, and he hadn't seen it. He didn't remember it, either.

“See, there's a man who knows a thing or two,” Hadden said, giving Hardy a look of scorn.

“Perhaps my time in the Crimea made me forget a thing or two,” Hardy said, and Hadden's face fell a bit, like he hadn't expected that revelation. “What was the feud about?”

“Sheep.”

* * *

“Excuse me,” Rose began, putting on her best smile as she and Ellie got closer to the woman Alec and Jamie had sent them after. “I don't think we've met. I'm Mrs. Jamie Hardy. This is Mrs. Hardy.”

The other woman snorted, looking down her nose at both of them, which was a bit of a feat considering she was shorter than Rose. She had that bitter crone thing down, with a face that looked to break if she smiled and cold eyes. She might not be strong, but Rose wasn't sure, what with her stocky size. She could probably do someone harm.

Sheep, maybe.

“You have something to say about that?” Ellie asked, sounding a bit defensive. “Are you implying something about—”

“I've got nothing to say to you,” the woman said, almost prim, and turned away, starting toward the outside of town.

Ellie looked at Rose. Rose bit her lip. That hadn't really gone to plan at all, though she had no idea how what she'd said could be so offensive. Maybe it was something to do with the last laird. Almost everyone here loved Jamie, and most of them didn't know Alec. 

Though... knowing him, he could have made someone mad. He was very grumpy, especially after Ellie's behavior got stranger.

“I think she knows something,” Ellie said. “Let's go after her.”

Rose nodded. She agreed there was something to that woman's reaction, and they should find out what it was. She didn't know that she wanted to push right away, but Jamie's reaction to the sheep had her worried, and she was still convinced that there was something wrong with Dùn Ùine.

“I would like to know what it is you think we did to you that makes you so rude,” Ellie said, and when the woman stopped to look back at her, shaking her head, she added, “and I'm asking as the Lady of Dùn Ùine.”

That made the other woman laugh. “Is that what you're going to call yourself?”

“I don't call myself that,” Ellie answered, “but that's the title I was given.”

“What is your problem with that, anyway?” Rose asked. “Almost everyone I've met is glad there's a laird again. Why aren't you?”

“He's no laird,” the woman told them. “He's not even a Hardy.”


	9. Time for Accusations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hardy and the Doctor look at a potential suspect, while Ellie, Rose, and Martha all have to deal with another allegation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How terrible is it that I keep going, "Oh, I should just have the Family show up so this can be over already?"
> 
> It has been interesting to try and balance all this, but it's also a bit stressful, and I feel like I didn't do as good a job with the stuff that comes before the Family, and so I am tempted to make them come in sooner than planned so I can wrap things up faster. Panic and rush the plot, that's me.

* * *

Hardy watched the man in front of him, his mind going through the possibilities as he did. This all seemed rather impossible, too easy. Why would anyone admit to such a feud knowing what had been done to McKinney's flock? Was this man stupid enough to boast about it? Or did he not know? Or was he somehow dumb enough to enjoy the idea of the sheep dying without realizing how that would seem to anyone else?

And why didn't anyone seem to know about this feud? It should have been the first thing on everyone's mind as soon as the subject of the sheep was brought up, but only Hadden seemed to know about it. Even McKinney hadn't mentioned it when they started talking about the killer being human.

“When you say that this feud of yours was about sheep, do you mean you hated him enough to have slaughtered half his flock day before yesterday?” Hardy asked, frowning at Hadden. Admittedly, he did not seem particularly intelligent, not to look on, but then again, Hardy knew that people weren't always what they seemed.

“What?” Hadden demanded, frowning. Somehow he looked even stupider now, with that frown creasing his face.

“You do know what happened to McKinney's flock, don't you?” Jamie said, well into his role as the nicer of the two of them. He seemed to be willing to believe that Hadden was innocent when he'd as much as admitted that he wasn't.

“'Course I know what happened to McKinney's flock,” Hadden snapped. “What do you think I am, dumb? Deaf? There's not a one of us that doesn't know. Whole damned town heard about that. He came into town ranting and raving about bloody murder, and it took forever to get the idiot to admit it was his sheep. Once he found out he wasn't important enough here, he went out to find the laird, swore the laird would make it right. Idiot.”

Hardy glared at him. “I don't think he's the only one that title applies to.”

“What?”

“Alec,” Jamie said, still trying to pretend he was charming. “I think we should probably take things with a bit of—”

“He's standing there insulting me to my face, and you think I should ignore it?” Hardy asked. “I don't think it needs to be said there's another idiot involved here.”

His brother frowned. “You know, it could have meant that there's little you could do about the sheep themselves, he is technically right. You can't bring them back from the dead, can't put their pieces back together, and if it was some wild predator that carried them off, you can't get recompensation from it. Yes, I'm sure a hunting party would gladly gather and go off looking for that predator if we knew what it was, but there was no clear sign of which animal it was, only a lot of destruction. You can do little in that sense, and that's the only reason I agree. Now, I'm not saying you won't give what support you can, you are too dutiful _not_ to, but it's still not the same thing.”

Hardy grunted. His brother talked too much and still managed to say very little. “Exactly what was this feud? Would you have felt your recompense was to take some of his flock?”

“No.”

“No?” Hardy asked. “Then how the bloody hell are you fighting over sheep? It shouldn't be about grazing rights. McKinney has plenty of land, and the sheep were on it when they died.”

“One of his bloody sheep corrupted my line.”

Hardy frowned. “What are you on about now?”

“I was breeding a special line, the better for the wool,” Hadden said. “One of his lesser sheep wandered onto my land and impregnated my ewes. Lost a whole cycle, and worse, the flock is now a bastardized mix. Bloody useless.”

“You're fighting over a sheep that—” Hardy stopped himself. “No. I'm done.”

“Alec—”

“You stay if you want. I'm going for a walk. Need to get away from all of this,” Hardy gestured to the town, biting back the word _stupidity,_ “for a bit.”

* * *

“He's no laird,” the woman told them. “He's not even a Hardy.”

“Not a Hardy?” Rose repeated, confused. “Of course he is. They both are. They're brothers. They look almost exactly alike.”

Ellie, on the other hand, was trying not to panic. She tried to tell herself that it was just old bitterness, someone in the town that didn't like the laird or didn't want them coming back. Most of the town seemed pleased, but judging from what little she knew about the man who'd been laird, they shouldn't be so glad. This woman just showed that, and it made sense.

It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the TARDIS had them impersonating the long lost sons of a real person. She didn't know how the TARDIS had known about this gap in history or why it thought this was a good time to bring them to, why it would risk someone discovering that Hardy and the Doctor weren't real, but it had.

Still, the woman _wasn't_ wrong. Neither of them were Hardys. Even Hardy wasn't, and Ellie did have a hard time with that since most of the time he was Hardy to her. All the same, as the son of a Time Lord, of the Doctor and Rose, the man should have a different name, whatever the Doctor's family name was if he did have one, and if not that, then either Tyler or maybe Smith like his adoptive mother. Then again, he had been adopted as the son of Stuart Hardy, so that made him a Hardy in that sense.  
Just... also not a Hardy.

“Those idiots are so glad to have someone back in that house they've fallen over themselves, but no one liked the last laird. Maybe they've done too much to try to forget him that they've lost their memory of what _he_ looked like, but I can guarantee you that neither one of them is a thing like him. I know what a son of his would look like, and they're not him,” the woman snapped. “Those two might sound like they belong here, but they don't.”

“You're basing that solely on how they look now?” Ellie asked, frowning. If that was it, maybe this wasn't as bad as it seemed. “You know people change in more than twenty years away. They're grown men now, and both of them went through a war. You don't know them was well as you think you do.”

The older woman snorted. “You want to believe that because you think you've found yourself some prize who was stupid enough to marry you. You're well past the bloom of life, lass, and you won't be giving him what he needs to make this trick of his work.”

“Excuse me?”

“A bairn, you idiot. It's no secret around here the land goes to male heirs,” the woman said. “You haven't got one, and you're not going to get one, are you?”

Ellie glared at her, tempted to smack her even if she had no intention of having children with Hardy, ever. “There's more to life than having children, and even you've got it wrong—there is a male heir. His brother's his heir.”

She thought she heard Rose mutter something under her breath about idiots, but she wasn't sure.

“Neither one of them is a true Hardy,” the other woman insisted. “I'll swear to that. I'll prove it.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“Ha, you think I'd tell you so you could stop me?” The crone shook her head. “No. And don't you be following me, or I'll make sure I remind everyone just what that laird looked like.”

Rose started to protest, but Ellie grabbed her arm. She wasn't going to let her stop the woman, not when they didn't have a good way of countering her claim. She was right, and Ellie knew it. She'd have to talk to Martha when she got back and see what the other woman thought about this.

A part of Ellie wondered if maybe they did need to use the watches and wake everyone early, between this woman and the sheep. 

“She's got some nerve,” Rose muttered, shaking her head. “I guess I never thought about what it would be like if people didn't want us back. Most of them did seem grateful. You suppose that was an act? Were they only pretending?”

“I have no idea,” Ellie admitted. “I haven't been in town as much as anyone else has—I think we should ask Martha—she'd be more likely to have heard the gossip. If they're really not happy about us being here, she'd know.”

“She hasn't mentioned it. You think she would keep something like that from us?”

“I don't know. I don't think so, but she could have thought it wasn't her place to say.”

Rose grimaced. “I just hope that woman doesn't cause a lot of trouble for us.”

* * *

“Oh, there you are, Martha,” Ellie called out to her, and Martha forced a smile, knowing they were both under a lot of stress right now. She didn't think either of them had gotten any sleep last night, but Ellie was playing lady of the house and didn't have work to do, which made things almost easier for her. Almost, since she had that whole complicated non-relationship with Hardy to deal with.

“Hello, Ellie. Rose,” Martha said, holding back the hug that normally would have been Rose's. They still treated her better than a servant in most respects, but her friends weren't all there, and that was hard. So was knowing that this could all be for nothing.

“I think I see the Doc—Jamie over there, Rose,” Ellie said, frowning a bit. “You might tell him what that woman said, ask him if he can think of a reason why she'd claim that.”

Rose nodded, walking away with a big smile on her face as she went to rejoin the Doctor. Martha frowned, turning back to Ellie. What was that about? What claim? Was it about the murdered sheep?

“We may have another problem,” Ellie said. She gave the town a glance and grimaced. “Okay, I'm forcing you to skip your errands. I'm sorry. I don't want to make more work for you, but I have got to talk to you, and not in town.”

Martha nodded, and they walked the path back to Dùn Ùine. When they were far enough from the town to set Ellie a little more at ease, she started talking.

“Rose and I met a woman today—Hardy and the Doctor flagged her up as suspicious—God, he's still such a cop, and the Doctor's... well, he's what he is,” Ellie said, then shook her head. “I'm not sure what her name was. I didn't get it. She didn't offer it. All I know is she said that neither of them was a Hardy.”

“What?”

“She insists they're not the sons of the laird and the town is fooling itself because it's what they want,” Ellie said, grimacing. “I think she's alone in believing that they're not who they say they are, but it's still an issue. She threatened to prove it.”

“How could she do that?” Martha asked, looking back behind them at the town. “There's no way she could, is there? The portraits in the house are from the William Wallace era, I think, not that I know that much about history, but still... It's not like there's photographs or DNA to dispute it.”

“I think we may need to create something to prove it, if we can. They wouldn't know anything about photoshop in this time, but the TARDIS does, and she made this damned mess, so she can fix it,” Ellie said. She put a hand to her head. “Why pick this place? Why put us somewhere where real people were and should be? Why the bloody marriage and all those lies? I just don't get it.”

“Maybe, given how little power she had and how many minds had to be altered, she chose something she could keep as close to their original personalities as she could,” Martha said. She shook her head. “I've no idea how the chameleon arch works—a lot of the technology the Doctor uses is completely alien to me.”

“Alien, huh?”

Martha winced. “Oh, God, that was terrible, wasn't it?”

“I think we could both do with a bit of a laugh,” Ellie said. She tried to smile and didn't quite manage it. “I don't know what we're going to do if she can prove her claim.”

“I guess we'll have to wake them if does seem like the town believes her,” Martha said. “Still, I think you were onto something with the photoshop idea. We can get try and make some old pictures. They did exist, and this family was apparently rich enough to have them, but it's still strange.”

“As strange as no one noticing the TARDIS sitting in the middle of the bloody yard?”

“No,” Martha said. That still didn't make sense to her, either, but she was glad that no one seemed to bother it, making it easier go back and forth between her duties and when she went to bed. Having the TARDIS as refuge kept her sane.

She wished it helped Ellie more.

“It would almost be a relief if we had to leave, but there's the whole universe at stake thing that makes that not really an option if we can avoid it,” Ellie said. “Not that I haven't come close to ruining the whole thing myself, but a little warning would be nice. TARDIS says, 'oh, by the way, you're married to the knob that stole your job, arrested your husband, and nearly drove you insane with another case he just had to solve—who happens to be half-alien and not just any half-alien but the sort of rare that's impossible.' If I'd known this was coming—”

“You'd have said no,” Martha finished, and Ellie stopped, wincing. “Yeah, it's kind of obvious why the TARDIS didn't warn you. Though again, I'm not sure why she chose wife. She could have made you another servant. We're not seriously going to have this conversation almost every day until they wake up, are we?”

“God, no,” Ellie said. “It's just... stress. I didn't sleep, and Hardy caught me coming back from the TARDIS, and you can imagine how well it went over when I couldn't tell him where I was, and now this woman—Susan Wright all over again—is threatening to tell everyone he's not the laird or even a Hardy. And someone is killing sheep. I so did not need this. I just need things to be calm so I can find a balance where Hardy doesn't think I'm cheating on him. Not that I can after acting all weird this week.”

“Take the excuse Rose gave you.”

“What?”

Martha knew this would be a hard sell, but she thought it would help. “Rose mentioned she'd upset you by asking if you were pregnant, and it got to Daisy, too, somehow, so... just use it. People love to make jokes about how erratic pregnancy makes a woman.”

“That is such a bad idea,” Ellie said. “Do you know what else my history here includes? My husband killed our son, tried to kill me, and in the process, I miscarried. Oh, and I killed him. Now that part, I'm not entirely sure I mind.”

“Well, at least that way if you slip and say you miss your boys, it has an explanation,” Martha said. “And really, it makes it even easier to explain why you're all strange—you'd have reason to fear the whole idea and be uneasy with him. Everything fits.”

“This is a bloody nightmare,” Ellie said. “You're right, but I don't want you to be right. I want to pretend you never said that. Because now that I've heard it, yes, it makes sense, but it did before. Only I said no then, and I denied it and—no, I've already dug in and said no and—”

“Just... remember it's still a possibility,” Martha said as they got close to the TARDIS in its hiding place under the trees. “Unfortunately, I think you'd better let me try and fake the photos. You'll be missed, and that's not a good thing. Why don't you check on Daisy? She's probably going stir crazy about now.”

Ellie nodded. “I shudder to think what the TARDIS gave her as a way to pass the time. I think I heard she was pretty addicted to her phone before. Right, I'm off. Thank you again, Martha. I know this isn't easy for you, either, and none of us could do it without you.”

Martha gave her a warm smile before darting into the TARDIS.

* * *

“I thought you had an intrepid partner with you today,” Rose said as she joined him, and Jamie smiled, always glad to see her. Something about Rose made everything lighter, as though she'd come casting a lamp into a dark room and at the same time shoved a weight off his shoulders. Her hand in his was one of the greatest feelings in the world, and he wouldn't give it up for anything. “Did you lose him somewhere?”

“Not on purpose,” Jamie said, knowing where her teasing was heading. “Hadden was provoking Alec, and he stayed rather calm despite it, but in the end, he was too angry to be around anyone. Can't say as I blame him. I'm not sure I like being stuck as the charming one. Seems like it would be easier to go storming about like he does.”

“I don't think you can help the charm,” Rose said. “You do it without even trying, pulling us all in.”

“If you start on me seducing vulnerable young women,” Jamie began, fighting a smile. “I will have to defend my honor.”

She laughed. “I'd let you if I didn't have something important to tell you.”

“Oh, I see. You and Ellie learned something of interest, did you?”

“Did you know you're not even a true Hardy?” Rose asked, and he frowned. Was someone implying he'd been born on the wrong side of the blanket? “She thinks you're imposters, coming here to steal the great fortune of Dùn Ùine.”

“Absurd. There's not much money in it. It's all tied up in the land.”

“I don't think she cares about that. Just that you're not who you say you are.”

“So, you're saying this woman claimed we're not the laird's sons?” Jamie asked, frowning at Rose's words. That didn't make sense to him. Everything he knew said that he was the second son of the laird, and while the man had been a right bastard, he knew he couldn't change who his father was. He'd gone as far away from the man as he could get, they both had, and he wasn't sure they would ever have come back if not for Alec's exaggerated sense of duty. “Rubbish.”

“Not poppycock?”

“You just want me to say that word, don't you?” Jamie asked. “You know it'll sound ridiculous coming from me.”

“Hmm,” Rose agreed, leaning against him, “but I kind of like you when you're ridiculous.”

“Oh, well, then, poppycock it is,” Jamie said, though he winced as soon as it came out. “No, not using that word again. Rose, pay her no mind. I'd assume she's someone our father made an enemy of years ago, and while I'm not surprised, I don't see why she wants to make trouble for us.”

“You can't think of a single reason?”

“Alec probably could,” Jamie admitted. “He was up looking at the old records in the study this morning, and I think he has a better memory for everything here, being older when we left.”

Rose bit her lip. “You don't think maybe your father got worse after you two were gone and took it out on the town, do you?”


	10. Time for Tensions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fences aren't really mended and more divisions happen as they try to understand what is happening in Dùn Ùine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I was thinking about it, and no one ever said I had to resolve everything before adding in a further complication.

* * *

A knock on Daisy's door had her looking up in surprise. She saw her stepmother there, and Ellie gave her a smile as she came inside. That was a bit familiar, but then she had known her as a governess first, so she didn't mind, though she didn't want a repeat of their last conversation. She didn't know why things were so difficult here, why it felt like everything had changed and something was wrong.

“Hey, there,” Ellie began. “I... I'm not sure what your father told you about what's going on right now, but I thought he might have told you that you weren't to go anywhere on your own—he's still protective, no matter where he is. If you wanted to go out—”

“I don't.”

Ellie frowned. “What's wrong?” 

“Nothing.”

Ellie snorted. “Sweetheart, when you say it like that, it's definitely not nothing. I know that the last time we spoke, it didn't go very well, but I am here, and you can talk to me.”

Daisy shook her head. She didn't actually have anything to say. Ellie was keeping secrets, her father always did, her uncle and aunt had theirs, and she didn't even think she trusted Martha. “No, I'm fine.”

“You are not,” Ellie said, going across to her. She sat down on the edge of her bed and put her hand on Daisy's arm. “I can tell you're upset, and I'm not leaving until you talk to me, so you might as well start.”

Daisy frowned. “Why are you pushing? A day or two ago, you could care less. And you don't remember things that you should. You've upset Da. I swear he thinks you want to leave him, and you claim you're not sick, but you're acting strange and I'm sick of it. I'm sick of this place. I hate it here.”

Ellie sighed. “I'm sorry. I thought you liked it here. You were oohing and ahhing over every room and what it looked like, finding something that you had to tell us about.”

“You noticed that? I thought you were too busy pulling away from Da every time he touched you.”

Ellie grimaced. “It wasn't like that. It's just—”

“It was.”

“Whatever is between me and your father, it doesn't change how I feel about you,” Ellie insisted. She reached over and took her hand. “It's complicated right now. There are... things I can't really discuss and—”

“Don't. Don't bother. Just—”

“No, it's important,” Ellie said. “Daisy, things are happening now that I can't explain. I don't know what is wrong with this place, not exactly. I know there's something off about it, and I think it's affecting all of us. Maybe there's some kind of... illness that is caused by the planets around here. I don't know. What I do know is that we can't be going around suspicious of each other all the time. That doesn't help any of us.”

Daisy bit her lip, knowing that the last part of her words were true, but it didn't make it any easier to believe or do. “I know I thought maybe you were sick, but even that doesn't explain the way you've been with us. You made me a promise, but you don't even remember it. And I've started to wonder if you ever loved Da. Why should I trust you? Because you tell me to? You're not acting like the woman I know. That woman I trusted. You I don't.”

“It's only been a few days,” Ellie reminded her, shaking her head. “How can it all have fallen apart so quickly? You haven't given me any time to change or address the issues you have. Give me a chance. Let's take a walk together and talk. I don't think it does you any good to be cooped up in here.”

Daisy didn't really want to go, but she didn't want to be here, either. “Fine.”

* * *

“You don't think maybe your father got worse after you two were gone and took it out on the town, do you?” Rose asked, unsettled again. She had a sense that the man must have been horrid, but she couldn't remember Jamie saying much about him before they came here. That was another part of their life before this that was a little fuzzy and difficult to bring clear.

“I can't see why he would have done any such thing,” Jamie said, shaking his head. “Not that he didn't have a temper—you think Alec is bad, Father was an unholy tyrant—but I don't know why he would turn that on anyone.”

“Was he ever violent?”

Jamie tensed, and a look passed over his face, a frown of confusion as well as a bit of horror, and she swallowed, regretting asking now, only she had to know, didn't she? If his father had been that sort of man, he needed to tell her, even if she knew he didn't want to. “I don't think we should discuss this, Rose. We should be looking for the man who might have harmed some sheep. Hadden seemed like a likely prospect, but his feud with McKinney is obvious and a little ridiculous. Still, I haven't given up. We have only barely started speaking to the town, and those distractions aside—”

“Speaking of distractions, this one isn't going to work,” Rose told him. “You can't avoid the question, Jamie. This is important.”

“So is finding who killed those sheep. This could be someone very dangerous,” he said, starting toward the nearest building. She glared at his back, shaking her head in frustration. He couldn't do this. She was starting to worry this man was worse than she'd thought, and he wasn't doing himself any favors by avoiding answering.

“You should just tell me. If you don't want to talk about it here, fine. We'll go back to Dùn Ùine and talk about it there, but we're not going to pretend I didn't ask. That's not how it works,” she insisted. “I don't know what you're thinking, but you can't—”

“Not now. Not here. Not when there is something of greater importance to worry about. That's all the past,” Jamie said. He turned to face her, and she was surprised by the anger in his eyes. “Let it go. Now.”

She stared at him. “Why are you—”

“I said, let it go,” he repeated, and his voice gave her a chill. She'd never seen him that angry before, and he'd never spoken to her like that before, either. She'd heard people say he was too good to be true—somehow they always sounded like her mother when she thought about it—but she hadn't thought that so much as he was just a decent person, a good man.

She shivered, letting him walk away this time. She wondered where Ellie and Martha had gotten to, and she winced to realize they must be back at Dùn Ùine by now. She supposed she may as well head toward the house herself, not wanting to be here alone.

She started up the path, a part of her wishing she hadn't brought up the subject, the rest of her bothered by his reaction. Why was it so hard for him to tell her? Was he ashamed of it, even if that was all his father's doing, not his own? Why was she the one who shared almost everything with him but that? His past was largely unknown to her, and she hadn't ever thought that there was anything wrong with it before, not when she knew the basics and he was good to her.

Maybe she should have pushed more before, but then—if he was like this here, what would he have done if she made him that angry while they were traveling?

She really didn't want to think about that.

* * *

Jamie leaned against the back of a building, closing his eyes as the emotions warred within him. He wanted to go after Rose, but he was still angry. He didn't like it when he was pushed, didn't no many people that did, and if she would just have let it go, things would have been fine. They didn't need to talk about his father now. That was not a part of any of this, and she didn't need to bother him about it. Not when those memories were as hazy as they were apparently painful.

He grimaced. He'd rather forget, and why did Rose insist on discussing that sort of thing? He'd already told her his father was a bastard, and not in the sense of being born on the wrong side of the blanket. What more did she need to know? That was more than enough. You didn't see him prying into the sordid details of her life—and given her mother, he imagined they were quite sordid indeed—so why must she poke at his?

He sighed. He would rather like to forget all of the past and only have now, with Rose. He'd been so happy since he met her, and what else did he really need?

He let his mind go back to the problem of the sheep, stubbornly trying to determine who would do such a thing. He was _not_ thinking about Rose. He _was_ not thinking about his father. He refused.

“I see you're hard at work.”

“I wasn't the one that stormed off,” Jamie said, fighting a smile at Alec's words. He didn't know why his brother's presence would have that sort of affect on him, but things were only going to improve now that he was here. “Rose thinks it's about our father.”

“Why?”

“Because she's got it in her head he was violent with us and so he must have been with the town as well,” Jamie told him, and Alec frowned. “Oh, and that woman you saw—she claims we're not his sons. Doesn't that just make it that much better?”

“Bloody hell. Why would anyone think we would _want_ to be his sons? For the land? To hell with that. I don't want a damned thing to do with that bastard, and the only reason I came back—”

“Daisy, I know. You think she deserves better than what you've been able to give her so far, and to that end, you've come here to set things right and make sure she has something for her future,” Jamie said, and Alec frowned at him. “Oh, please. You are the worst grump in the world, but she's your daughter, and you'd go through hell for her. We've neither of us blessed of our own, since neither of us picked a lifestyle that amasses any great sum of money. I had less savings than you, and even yours were not great, since we're not men that money matters to besides the essentials. Now, though, Daisy's getting close to of age, and she needs something to start her off in the world.”

“This isn't about giving her a dowry,” Alec said. “I have no intention of using my daughter as a bloody bargaining piece.”

“Of course not,” Jamie said. “That was more what he would do, seeing us as nothing more than his toys to shape the future. We're neither of us that sort of man, and we don't have much respect for those what are.”

Alec shook his head. “I don't think we should have come back. Maybe it would have been better if Dùn Ùine was left to fade and decay, lost to time. We were all better off before we came here.”

“Agreed, to a point,” Jamie said. “Still, you'd never have been able to stay away. Sooner or later, you'd have come back. You're too responsible not to. Not that you couldn't leave now that things are in order. That might be best as well.”

“Things aren't in order. Someone is killing sheep, and we're no closer to knowing who killed them than we were when were first found out about them.”

“Oh, you,” Jamie teased, “Always finding something to be grumpy about. Come on, then. You've calmed down. I've calmed down. We can resume our inquiry.”

“We should find McKinney.”

“Why do I now get the feeling you suspect him?”

“What Hadden said—if it's true—about him running and shouting about bloody murder and being offended when he didn't get the attention he thought he was due—”

“He killed his own sheep for attention?” Jamie finished. “Oh, that's just wrong.”

* * *

“It figures he would have left town,” Hardy grumbled to himself as he and Jamie walked back toward the same farm they'd spent most of the other day roaming, looking for signs of an animal or even some depraved human that could have killed those sheep.

“Just to spite you.”

“Oh, shut up,” Hardy muttered. He didn't look back at his brother. “You know it's a damned foolish thing for him to do, coming to us for the attention he was due. And if it was him, then we were both fools because we took him at his word.”

“Oi, I resent that,” Jamie said. “I am still very much a man of intelligence. I know very many things, you know. More than I have time for, and some I can't even remember knowing, but I'm very well versed. I know that.”

“And yet neither of us questioned McKinney's story that he saw and heard nothing when the sheep died,” Hardy said. His brother frowned at him, and then his eyes widened. “Sure, they were out there on the pasture, not too close to the house, but those sheep would have raised holy hell when they were butchered. He should have heard something.”

“Unless he's deaf.”

“That's possible,” Hardy agreed, though he would like to be sure of that, since he did not want to have been tricked by the man. He never liked being deceived, but this was one case where he shouldn't have been, and it rankled more than most. If he'd spent days worrying about the safety of the town and hunting down some phantom killer when the man behind all of it was the same one who made the claim, Hardy wouldn't forgive himself.

And he needed his brother along to stop him from hurting McKinney if that proved to be true.

“One other possibility exists,” Jamie began, and Hardy looked at him. “If the sheep were asleep when the attack started, they might not have made much noise.”

“It would have woken them after they started dying.”

“Not if someone drugged them.”

“So now this killer _drugged_ the sheep? To what—for silence? Fine, say they did, that would get them past McKinney, but only McKinney would have access to them to drug them, and they're sheep. How would anyone drug that many sheep without anyone noticing? They're grazers. Not like a dog or cat or even a pig that could be fed poison.”

“What about their water source? It's not like McKinney has a river flowing through his property. He'd have to supply them with it, and that means someone could have drugged their basin.”

Hardy frowned. “How would we prove it if they had?”

“You could drink some.”

Hardy grunted. “Not likely, though I could always make you do it. Not that it matters. The sedative would be long gone by now. The live sheep were moving around when we got there, so if there was anything in the water, it was gone by then.”

“Very true,” Jamie agreed, and Hardy could tell that some kind of speech was coming, but just as his brother was about to start it, something green streaked across the sky, arcing toward the ground.

“What the bloody hell was that?”


	11. Time for Tough Calls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The green light in the sky might change everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was one of those chapters where progress was slow, I had to redo it, and in the process, I stumbled onto a giant plot hole, one that was almost of my own making. I'd forgotten about a change I made to canon that made something possible for Ellie that wasn't possible for Martha, and that I should have addressed sooner, but at least now I caught it.
> 
> And I found the details about the Family of Blood pretty vague (almost non-existent) and so I added some of my own to make it a little better. Not much, but I think it helps.

* * *

If Daisy was expecting her stepmother to tell her more now that they were out of the house, she was to be disappointed. She didn't know why she had actually been stupid enough to believe that things would be different. Ellie had seemed like she meant it back at the house, but it seemed like Daisy was right to have her doubts.

Ellie hadn't said much since they left, and what she did say wasn't important at all. What the day was like, how clear the air was and how beautiful the scenery was, and that just irritating after thinking that maybe Daisy would finally know what was going on with her stepmother.

“I don't care what it looks like out here,” Daisy admitted. “I want to know what it is you're not telling me. I don't understand why you've been like this, but it hurts—not just Da, either.”

“I never intended to hurt you,” Ellie told her, grimacing. She took a breath and let it out, and Daisy thought maybe she was trying to find the right word. “It's not like I wanted to be keeping secrets or causing pain. Things are just complicated right now, that's all. When this is all over, you'll understand.”

Daisy grimaced. “I'm not a child anymore, you know. There are people who have already been married and had kids at my age.”

“And I'm glad you're not one of them,” Ellie said. “My friend Beth did that. She didn't regret her children, she loves Chloe, but she didn't get to do things she wanted to do. She almost lost everything when she lost her son.”

Daisy frowned. “I don't remember you ever mentioning Beth before.”

“I haven't?” Ellie winced. “I would have thought I had. Never mind that now. We should talk about... about you not trusting me.”

“Are you actually going to tell me what is going on, then?”

“I'll try,” Ellie said. “I know things haven't been the same since we came here. I feel like my whole life changed overnight, and I haven't adjusted it to it that well.”

“That's it?”

“No, it's not, but that is a big part of it,” Ellie said. She stopped, leaning to pick up a flower. She started pulling at the petals as she spoke. “I never expected to be in this position.”

“You mean, the whole lady of the manor thing or—” Daisy stopped, staring as green light arced across the sky. “Did you see that? I don't know what it was. Something... green. Almost a flash, but what would make a light like that?”

Ellie swore, loudly, and Daisy looked over at her with a frown. She knew that Ellie didn't always have the mouth of a lady, but it wasn't even that. With all the strange things that had been going on, and now there was something in the sky, and she could tell that Ellie knew what it was. She'd cursed because she knew, and whatever she knew about it, it wasn't good.

“Ellie?”

“We need to find your father and your uncle. Right now.”

“What?” Daisy asked. “You know what that was, don't you? What was it? Why aren't you telling me? What do you know, and why are you so scared?”

“I'll explain everything when we're together,” Ellie told her, and Daisy wasn't sure she believed her, but at least if she _did_ go find her father, she would have someone around that she trusted. And her father would—should—tell her what he knew about what was going on, even if Ellie didn't.

She nodded, turning toward town. She didn't know how long it would take her to find her father, but it would probably be a lot less frustrating than trying to figure out or even just talk to Ellie. Something was wrong there, and Daisy was no closer to know what that was now than she had been before Ellie came to her room.

She almost found herself missing her mother, but she didn't know why she would. That woman was long gone, and she hadn't been good to her father. She just wished this place wasn't affecting all of them like this. She missed when they were happy. Things had been good before, not perfect, but good. Her father and Ellie only bickered for fun, not in anger and frustration. Her father wasn't distant and worried about things he wouldn't say, and her stepmother seemed genuine. Her uncle hadn't been there all the time, but she still had fond memories of him.

Why did everything before seem so much better? Ellie was right in that it all seemed to change too fast. It was Dùn Ùine. It had to be, but why?

Was it something to do with the grandfather she'd never known or something much worse?

And what was that light?

* * *

Martha's previous experience with photoshop was limited to the occasional improvement of her family photos and even one very mean alteration of her father's girlfriend that she'd done when her parents' marriage first fell apart. That wasn't all that useful for what she was trying to do, but even with the TARDIS powered down, she had been able to get enough information to make what she thought could be a decent fake.

Admittedly, it would have been easier if she'd been able to modify actual pictures of the family, the one they were supposed to be making the Doctor and his son a part of, since that would be all the proof that they needed, only she didn't have the right photos to work with. She was going to need both pictures from the Doctor's son _and_ the Hardys that _did_ own Dùn Ùine. Even a painting could have been helpful, but she didn't have any.

She would have to search the house later, though it would be difficult to be sure who was who unless she had a picture. She thought she'd be able to get some from the phones that the Doctor's family had—as long as Daisy was a typical teenager, she probably had hundreds on there, though possibly not of her father.

Still, she'd need Ellie's help, and she'd have to ask her when she was done with Daisy. Hopefully she could still get that done today, though she wasn't sure if they could. She wished she'd thought of finding a picture in the house first, though, because she'd already have it to use instead of spending all that time looking for tutorials without actually having pictures. She was too used to the future where everything was online. She probably could have found one if she'd actually looked in the house, but she'd been so concerned with her lack of photoshop skill, she'd gone that direction first, and that was a mistake.

“Martha, they're here.”

She looked up from shutting the TARDIS door, frowning. “What? The others didn't see me coming out of there, did they?”

Ellie shook her head. “No, I mean the Family. They're here.”

Martha stared at her. “Please tell me you're joking. I was only in the TARDIS for maybe an hour. You're sure?”

“Green light in the sky, same as the one we saw when we met up with you lot in Cardiff,” Ellie said. “I just saw it. Daisy saw it. We have to get the watches and wake them now.”

“We can't,” Martha said, frowning. Ellie stared at her, but Martha knew that they'd be rushing things if they did. This wasn't something to panic about, even if the Doctor felt he had to run from the Family. They had a plan in place, and they had to stick to it at least a little longer. “No, Ellie, think. We came here to hide. If they can't find them, then we're safe. It'll all be over.”

“We don't know that,” Ellie disagreed. “We have no way of knowing how long the Family has been without a body, how close they are to the end of their cycle. They might not be dead or close to it. And what if they take hosts here? What about the impact on time if they die before they should? Or any of a thousand other things that could go wrong?”

“It's a risk,” Martha said, hoping she was right and she could live with herself if she was making the wrong choice. “But so is rushing to wake them. We should be cautious. If we wait to see what the Family do, then we won't give them what they're looking for. We can't let them know they're right about where they are. The longer the Doctor and his family stay hidden, the better it is for everyone.”

“Sure it is,” Ellie muttered. “We just sit here, waiting for people to start dying. Brilliant plan that is. I am not going to do that.”

“The Doctor ran and hid instead of facing them. What do you expect him to do if he wakes?”

“You've got to be kidding,” Ellie said. “He's nine hundred years old. The last of a great race. He knows all of history. He has to have some idea of how to fight them. He can't possibly think the only way is hiding because obviously that doesn't work.”

“We don't know that it doesn't,” Martha countered. She sighed. She didn't know that she wanted to be defending this plan, but they knew so little about the Family and what they were actually up against. “Remember the other night when we weren't sure if the Family had killed those sheep?”

Ellie nodded. “Of course I do. We went through everything we could find and didn't get any more information about them. It would have been nice for him to include more of that or at least have an easier to find place to _look_ for that. That library in the TARDIS is a mess, and it's almost impossible to find in the first place.”

“So, we wait,” Martha said. “We find out what they do, and we act accordingly. “There's still a chance, however minor, that they won't find the Doctor at all. Everything's hidden, so we have a bit of time to decide what to do.”

“I sent Daisy to find the Doctor and Hardy.”

Martha grimaced. “I really don't think that we should tell them yet, or that we should get the watches out and remind them of their existence—remember, that didn't go over very well with Alec the first time.”

“I know,” Ellie agreed, and it was her turn to wince. “I am not saying I want a repeat of that, but I don't think we can just pretend the Family _isn't_ here. They are going to be looking for them, and if there is any hint that—there's at least one woman that will say they're not who they've claimed to be, so we have to be prepared for this all falling apart.”

“And we will be. We've already started on disproving that claim, and we could, I think, use that attack on the sheep as a way to keep people closer to the house. It should be safer, though it's hard to know. I don't know.”

“This would never fly in a proper investigation back home. It's not just us having procedures in place and training—we don't keep our people uninformed. We do compartmentalize stuff, but not like this. Not the things they need to know,” Ellie said, touching her head. “Even Hardy at his worst wasn't like that. The Doctor should have told you about this. He should have made sure we could find it, no matter how little time he had. And if not him, then the damned dog—Where did we put my bloody mobile?”

“What?” Martha shook her head. “You can't use that for proof, and we don't know that we're going to wake them yet. At least wait a few hours, Ellie. We need time to know if we're doing the right thing. We can't rush this and risk the universe.”

“No, I know, or I might be willing to delay a bit, but only if I can be sure that it won't mean a bunch of people are going to die,” Ellie said. “I didn't think of it before, but K-9 would know, and Hardy has called the damned dog before, so if we can get a hold of him, we can ask. Stop bloody looking at me like that—I know it sounds daft, but the dog isn't an ordinary one. It's a robot, and I can call Sarah Jane, too... Or I could, if we weren't in the damned past.”

“No, you can call from now,” Martha said, a bit relieved to hear they might be able to get some real information about what they were up against. “The Doctor, he did something to my mobile and Rose's, and they both work anywhere in space and time.” 

“That's right,” Ellie said. “I remember now—Donna called her grandfather while the Doctor was fixing a time loop, so it has to, doesn't it?”

“Donna?” Martha asked, not sure what the woman from Vitex had to do with this.

“Not important,” Ellie said. “What is important is that I am going to see if I can find out more information from Sarah Jane—former companion, Hardy's adoptive mother—don't ask—or the Doctor's robotic dog, and then we'll know if we're waking them or not.”

Martha nodded, not sure she'd caught all of that, and she did have questions about the names that Ellie had mentioned, but she wasn't going to try and ask about now. They really didn't have the time, not with Family here. They needed to be prepared for what was coming. 

Not that she thought she'd ever feel ready for this.

* * *

Ellie rummaged through the small box that had all of her possessions, everything she'd had with her when they ran into the TARDIS in Roald Dahl Plass. She hoped that this was would be worth it, since she was going to lose what little trust the others had left in her if she couldn't explain where she'd disappeared to after that light. She'd already made things worse with Daisy trying to make them better, and she thought the same was true with Hardy, so she had to find something of use.

Most likely, that would mean they'd end up using the watches and waking everyone. If the risk was great enough, they would. Or maybe just one of them. She'd almost settle for just waking Hardy because he was only half, that seemed safer, and he could probably figure out a way of outsmarting the family—he had done it with other aliens without his father's help—and of course, that would mean that she'd be done with the sham marriage. She could be back working with him like the partner she was instead of the wife she wasn't.

Then again, if they could just keep hiding until this was all over, it wouldn't be terrible. No fighting, no violence, no technology or knowledge from the future corrupting this place. Nothing like that at all.

Only if they were wrong, and there was no hiding, then people were going to die, and Ellie refused to be responsible for that. She dug her mobile out of her purse and found Sarah Jane's number, putting it in Martha's, making the call.

After two rings got nothing, Ellie tried leaving a message, hoping maybe the other woman wasn't picking up because she didn't recognize the number. “Sarah, it's Ellie Miller. I need your help—or maybe your dog's. The universe—and your son's life—kind of depend on it. Ring me back, please. Soon as you can.”

She was in the middle of sending a text when the mobile rang.

“Sarah Jane?”

“Ellie,” the other woman greeted her warmly. “Sorry, I didn't recognize the number, and I've learned to be a bit cautious about this sort of thing. What's wrong? What happened to Alec? Please tell me he did not get hurt by another alien bounty hunter.”

“No, it's not like that,” Ellie began. Then she winced. “Well, no, it's a bit more complicated. We were all set to go to Joe's new plea hearing, and then the TARDIS appears... The Doctor got himself spotted by some gaseous predators that are able to track him through time. He ran at first, I guess, and he couldn't shake them, and he was there to refuel at the rift when we were—it was probably the TARDIS again—”

“She does have a habit of putting you where you need to be,” Sarah said. “So, what happened? Was Alec able to help his father with them?”

“The Doctor's brilliant plan was to turn himself human and hide in the past.”

“What?”

“Yeah, Hardy didn't like it, but according to Rose, who went all Bad Wolf on us again, this timeline is set, and this had to happen. Otherwise none of what Hardy experienced in the future happens, and it's a mess.”

“As usual. So what exactly can I do to help?” Sarah Jane asked. “Are you wanting Jack to come back to the past for you?”

“I think we can hold that as a last resort. Since these things are hunting the Doctor for eternal life, it would be bad if they got hold of a man who can't die.”

“Quite.”

“What I need to know is what you or K-9 know about the Family of Blood,” Ellie told her. “I should have called sooner, but it's been so stressful here, and while my mobile never got the 'jiggery-pokery' that makes it possible to call anywhere in space and time, Martha's does, not that she knows you at this point to call you, but I didn't realize I could until today. This is such a bloody nightmare.”

“You're hiding from an enemy you know nothing about? Yes, that does sound rather like a nightmare. Did he neglect to tell you?”

“Pretty much. And Hardy didn't say much about them, either, before he got himself arched lost all his memories. And don't get me started on what the TARDIS _did_ give him to replace them. I'll lose it,” Ellie muttered. “I need to know what the Family will do to get to the Doctor. Are they going to start killing everyone here? It's a small town, back in the middle of nowhere in Scotland, somewhere that's almost completely isolated and could be forgotten, but that doesn't mean they deserve to die.”

“You're in Scotland?”

“Yeah, some place called Dùn Ùine,” Ellie answered. “The Doctor told us it meant Fort of Time or something like that when we got here. I'm not so sure about the translation, but if you know of any disasters there because you lived up here for so long—”

“Ellie, Dùn Ùine is the ancestral home of the Hardy family. My husband's family. Alec still has that house.”

“What?” Ellie asked, turning to look back toward the TARDIS doors like she could actually see the house from here. “Oh, bloody hell. You're kidding me. He owns that monstrosity? Really? As in that part's not a lie? Then what about this pair of brothers that disappeared before the Crimean war? They're taking their places, but if they leave... doesn't that mean that the house won't pass to him?”

“It has to,” Sarah insisted. “That's set. That's where he grew up. It's where—well, we won't get into a lot of that, but that land has to stay in Stuart's family. He left it to Alec as his son, and it's still important now. I remember they made some big deal about Alec taking us there when Harold Saxon got elected, and that's not the only part of history that means he _has_ to have that house.”

Ellie rubbed her head. “As if this wasn't complicated enough. I'll worry about that later, though. First I have to know about the Family. The Doctor's instructions were to give them their watches and turn them back Time Lord if there was an emergency, and the Family is here, but Martha was hoping that we could keep hiding, and I don't know if we dare.”

Sarah Jane sighed. “I don't know anything about them myself, but let me put you on speaker for a second. K-9, can you tell us anything about the Family of Blood?”

“Affirmative,” the dog answered. “Etheabosians. Green gaseous creatures from the planet Etheabos. Commonly called the Family of Blood as they are predatory in nature and hunt in family packs. They are able to possess humanoid hosts and control them. Outside of a humanoid, their lifespan is only three earth months. Possession of the humanoid destroys their mind. Etheabosians have a heightened sense of smell that allows them to track their prey. They use technology to travel, sustaining their essence while in transit, as well as heavy weaponry. Their ships are well-armed. So are they.”

“How do you kill them?” Ellie asked, grimacing. “Or at least stop them?”

“Any attempt to kill the Etheabosian would only kill the host,” K-9 said. “The gaseous form could simply take another.”

“How far can they travel as gas, then?”

“My databanks do not have that information.”

Ellie swore. She didn't believe this. How were they supposed to kill something that could just jump to another body?

“Well, I can see why the Doctor wanted to hide, but if you could get to their ship and disable whatever keeps their essence safe while they're traveling, you could keep them from going anywhere else,” Sarah Jane said. “That's just a theory, of course, but if they were held in place, they'd simply die off and no longer be a threat.”

“That would work if I knew where the ship was and had any idea how to get in it,” Ellie muttered. “Still, better than nothing. And knowing they're armed is something, though not a good something. Let's see—a containment field might work, but I've got no idea how to make one.”

“Alec does,” Sarah said. “I think.”

“Affirmative.”

“I hate to say it, and I'm not sure it would be enough, but if you only woke him, it might be enough. They wouldn't know about the Doctor's son, and he is only half Time Lord.”

“I kind of had that thought,” Ellie agreed. “Well, I can see about that. It would probably help a lot, since everyone besides Martha thinks I've gone barmy. I don't know. I feel like no matter what we do, people will still die, and we will still screw something up.”

“I don't envy you the choice,” Sarah Jane said. “I wish I was there or could do more to help—”

“Well, then Hardy could be suspicious of his mother instead of his wife,” Ellie muttered. “K-9, is there anything else you can tell me about these Etha—about the Family?”

“Negative, Mistress. My databanks are incomplete on this subject.”

“It's better than nothing,” Ellie said. “Thank you, K-9. Sarah—”

“Don't thank me,” Sarah told her. “Just do what you can to keep my son safe, even if that means putting him at risk.”


	12. Time for Searches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They hunt for the source of the green light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I am a terrible, terrible person.

* * *

Rose stopped when she saw the green light, halting her progress toward Dùn Ùine. She had the strangest feeling that she'd seen that before, and she didn't like it. She didn't remember seeing it, but she was sure she had.

She swallowed. She had to know what that light was. She didn't care where the others were or even what Jamie had done earlier—she was still angry about that, she wouldn't stop being frustrated about his behavior—but she was more focused on that light. Something about it made her stomach twist up, making her nervous. Something about that light was dangerous, and she knew it.

She started toward the light, and then she heard her name. She turned back, relieved when that person turned out to be Daisy.

“I thought that was you,” the girl said as she ran the rest of the way up to her, grumbling and cursing her skirts much like her stepmother did as she got closer. “Did you see that green light?”

“I did. I was going to go look for what might have caused it,” Rose told her. Daisy frowned. “Weren't you about to do the same?”

Daisy grimaced. “Ellie said I should find Da and Uncle Jamie.”

“And you did what Ellie told you to do?” Rose asked, frowning. She wouldn't have expected that. She didn't think they were getting on, same as Ellie seemed to be having problems with near everyone. Not Rose, though she did find the other woman's behavior troubling, and not Jamie, though she wasn't sure about that.

“I'd rather be with Da,” Daisy answered. “Though... if he and Uncle Jamie saw the green light, they probably went to find it, too.”

“Yeah,” Rose agreed, knowing her curious husband would have no qualms about heading right for the source of the light. He'd want to know what it was, sheep killer or no sheep killer, and he would love to have another excuse to avoid talking about his father.

“We'll find them when we find it,” Daisy said, and Rose nodded. They started walking again, going out into the fields. Rose wasn't sure if this was still part of Dùn Ùine or if they were on someone else's land now—Jamie had pointed out the boundaries, but she'd forgotten—but she didn't think anyone would care.

“Do you know what Ellie spoke to Martha about?”

Daisy frowned. “I didn't know they had spoken. I was in my room, reading—there's nothing else to do here. It's so boring. I hate it—and Ellie came in saying she wanted to talk. She suggested we go out because I was probably feeling cooped up, but I didn't want to go. I never saw Martha, not since breakfast.”

“That's strange. Ellie caught her on the way to town and stopped her. They went back to Dùn Ùine.”

Daisy shook her head. “I didn't see her. I saw Ellie, and we spoke for a bit. She tried to apologize, but it didn't work that well. She still won't tell me anything, which doesn't make it any better. I don't like being lied to, and I always know when someone's doing it.”

Rose nodded. She was familiar with that, knowing how it felt when Jamie lied to her and she could tell. She hated knowing that he thought he had to, that he believed he could get away with it. That hurt more than the actual lie. She wasn't stupid, and he rarely did it, but that didn't make it better.

“How far do you think that light is?”

Rose didn't know. “We could be in for a long walk.”

“I'll do it. I have to know what that was, and I want to find Da.”

* * *

“I'm starting to think we're chasing a bloody figment of our imagination,” Alec grumbled, and Jamie nodded, tempted to agree. It felt like they'd been hiking for hours, trying to reach the spot where that light must have fallen, and that didn't seem to exist. Maybe it was just some trick of the light and they were both mistaken in what they'd seen.

“It didn't seem like anything that belonged in the sky, and yet I am convinced it came from there. Almost as though it descended from heaven like something from my dreams,” Jamie said, and Alec frowned. “Don't look at me like that. It's not like I'm seeing angels. I haven't gone mad and decided that I am going to lead France to victory. It's not religious. It's more the sort of thing that—well, come to think of it, the man is French, too, that fellow Verne who writes those delightful novels about impossible things—”

“I'm not interested in impossible things,” Alec interrupted. “Whatever did that was real. We saw it. We know it exists. We may not know what it is, but we know it's not fake.”

“I wasn't saying that it was. I've just been dreaming about the sort of thing that you would consider impossible,” Jamie told him. “I see myself as this traveler. I go through space in a blue box that travels in time. I see incredible alien worlds, have several different faces, and I have grand adventures. Some of it is truly wonderful, some of it not as much. Rose said I should write it down as a novel.”

“That does seem to be the only place it has any value.”

“Alec.”

“Dreams are just that—dreams. We don't have time to waste on them,” Alec said, the picture of practicality. That was him, so responsible. And Jamie... so not. “It doesn't help us any to get distracted by them.”

“I'm not. I am only saying that I see a connection,” Jamie said. “We're just talking. We don't know what anything is yet. We're still a ways away from whatever made that light, and we can talk on the way. There isn't a law against it. Why are you being so difficult?”

“I'm not,” Alec disagreed. He stopped, looking back toward town. Jamie frowned, following his gaze. “I thought I heard something.”

“You are paranoid,” Jamie told him, but a second later, he saw something himself, a flash of a rather bright fabric, one he recognized as his own wife's dress from earlier. He'd rather loved the color of it, and it was unforgettable. “Oh.”

“Da,” Daisy called out, and he saw her come through the trees just before Rose came completely out of cover. She pulled her skirts almost indecently high and ran over to his side. 

“You saw it, didn't you? That green light? What was it? I think Ellie recognized it, but she wouldn't tell me. She just said to get you and Uncle Jamie.”

“We don't know anything about it yet,” Alec told her. He did not seem pleased to see her, but then, knowing him, he would have told Daisy to stay put at Dùn Ùine, and she hadn't. She was here, and on Ellie's orders. That was far from good.

“I figure we're still a bit from it,” Jamie said. “Though I swear it must have gone down somewhere ahead of us. Was anyone else from town interested in seeing what it was?”

“I don't know. I was closer to Dùn Ùine. We both were,” Rose answered, her tone decidedly cool. She was still angry, then. Not that Jamie was surprised, he just didn't want to think about that right now. He would much rather deal with a random green light in the sky. “I haven't seen anyone else, or anyone in town since I left Jamie. Just me and Daisy.”

“Fine,” Alec said. “Let's see what we find. Daisy, stick close to me.”

“Dad, I'm not a baby,” she said, but Jamie saw her wrap her arm around his without a further complaint. Alec seemed reassured, walking ahead of the rest of them. “Do you think we're going to find something? Or was it just some... light or trick of the light?”

“Not sure,” Alec told her.

Jamie looked at the field. “It doesn't look promising from here, that's for sure. Look, you can see almost everything before us, and there isn't anything here that isn't... grass.”

“Maybe it's smaller than we thought,” Rose suggested, brilliant as ever. “We should check the whole field.”

* * *

“You're back late.”

“Searched the entire bloody field,” Hardy reported, not looking at his wife as he pulled off his jacket. After a day in town and wandering about the grassland, he was overheated and grouchy. He would have liked to have found something. He wanted to cool off or hurt something. Maybe both. “Where have you been?”

“Here,” Ellie answered, and he frowned at her, not sure he believed that. “Ask Martha or Daisy if you don't believe me. I left Daisy and came back here. Martha saw me when I did.”

Hardy glanced toward his daughter. She nodded in agreement, though she grimaced. He wasn't so sure that she believed Ellie had come back, though he thought she supported what Ellie'd claimed about leaving Daisy's side.

“I suppose I should have expected that,” Ellie said, shaking her head. “Do you have any idea how galling it is that you don't trust me even a little?”

“Maybe if you were a bit more open about what you did and where you've been, things would be different,” Daisy said, folding her arms over her chest. “Or should I pretend you didn't tell me that you would tell us everything when we were together?”

“That was the plan, yes,” Ellie agreed, and Hardy knew as soon as she said it that she wasn't planning on telling them a damned thing. He didn't believe this.

“We could use some information,” Jamie agreed, reaching for Rose, who pulled away from him. He shook his head at her action, and Hardy wondered if such a thing could be contagious, this degradation of a once happy marriage.

Or maybe he just had no idea what that was and had fooled himself twice over, first with Tess and then with Ellie.

“I think I've got it, Ellie. I don't think I could fool anyone back home with them, but I have something that will work for now, here,” Martha said, coming into the house. Hardy frowned, and Martha stopped short, obviously not expecting all of them to be there. “Oh, um...”

“Would you like to explain that one, Martha?” Hardy asked, not the least bit pleased to learn that the family's trusted servant was in on his wife's deception. This was completely unacceptable, and he would probably have to dismiss her. That was a bloody perfect way to end a day that had started out like a damned nightmare.

“I...” Martha swallowed. “Um, I think I... I found some old photographs of you and your brother. From before you left. I was trying to find a way of bringing them up in conversation without being too obvious. It wasn't anything bad. Here, look.”

She held out the photograph, and Hardy took it, not sure he remembered every being photographed with his family before he married Tess. Jamie crossed over to him, looking it over.

“Look at us,” Jamie said. “Still so young. You almost look like you might be smiling. No, that can't be you. Is that me? No, that's not—I don't suppose I made you laugh? I don't remember sitting for this, but there is a lot I don't remember from back then.”

“On purpose, I think,” Rose said, and Jamie looked back at her. “Or are you still going to deny that your father was abusive?”

“What?”

“We are _not_ having this discussion,” Hardy said, giving a flat decree. He was not going to let them start in on his father. He refused. That time was left behind them, and with good reason. That was over and done, not to be revisited ever again. “I want to know what you know about the green light, if anything, Ellie, and I don't want another bloody lie.”

“Why must everything I say be a lie?” Ellie demanded, offended. “I'm not lying. You're being overly paranoid, you self-righteous git.”

“Ellie, we all agree you've been acting strange,” Rose said, giving her a look of pity. “It would be a lot easier to believe you if you had a reason for all of these odd little things you're doing, but you haven't given us one.”

“Oh, bloody hell,” she said. “Would it be easier for all of you to trust me if I told you I was pregnant?”

* * *

“What?”

Ellie regretted the words as soon as they were out of her mouth. She hadn't actually wanted to use that excuse, even if Martha thought it might help, especially not after talking to Sarah Jane. She had blurted it out in frustration, not thinking, and now she was trapped. Again. Damn it.

“You are?” Daisy asked, frowning. “I thought you told me that was near impossible for you. I don't understand.”

“Me, either,” Rose said. “I know you told us you weren't. I know you did.”

“Well, I would think that the prospect of being pregnant would be rather... terrifying for Ellie, considering what happened last time, and she might not want to discuss that,” the Doctor said, apparently aware of what Hardy believed had happened to Joe and the boys. That was something of a relief, though Ellie wasn't sure she should count him as being on her side.

“Oh,” Daisy said. “I suppose not. All that talk... was that to prepare me just in case you did lose this baby, too?”

Ellie swallowed, not wanting to say another word. She would like the ground to swallow her, or at least a car she could pound on while she screamed out her frustration. No, still the first one, since Hardy was staring at her.

Oh, god. This was a nightmare.

“Can I please talk to Hardy alone?” Ellie asked, managing not to choke on that. She held out a hand to him. “Let's... let's take another walk. I know you're tired and probably don't want to, but I'm feeling... smothered in here.”

He nodded, still not saying a word as he followed her outside. She'd thought this would be easier to do if they were alone, and since this was sort of between the two of them, it was a good a reason as any to get him alone, even if she'd never meant to say it.

Besides, this way Martha couldn't know to stop her, since she doubted the other woman would agree with what she was about to do. She led Hardy toward the TARDIS, into the strange spot in the yard where it somehow managed to vanish in plain sight, and took him right up to the doors.

She opened them, stepping inside and tugging him in behind her. Convincing him to open the watch should be a breeze once she had him in the TARDIS. He couldn't deny anything now that he'd seen it. She stopped, looking back at him.

She thought he was going to say something about the room, but before she got a word out to ask him, he'd closed the distance between them and kissed her. Stunned, she let it happen, caught up against him and having traitorous thoughts about how Tess could ever have cheated on him when he did kiss like this. They weren't even like that, she didn't want him that way, but she swore she could do that again in spite of everything.

Hardy pulled back for air, leaning his head against hers. “Why didn't you just tell me? You've been driving me bloody insane.”

“Um... I am telling you,” Ellie said, though she felt sick to her stomach. She was about to crush this man so badly, and while she knew the Hardy she knew didn't feel like this, it wasn't going to make things better once he was back to himself.

Things would be awkward. Very awkward.

“I asked you more than once for a reason,” he said, touching her face. She tried not to cringe, even though he was gentle, and it was almost nice. That was the most surprising part about this whole fake marriage, that he was so kind. “Why couldn't you just tell me? I know you're scared, but it's not... I'd have understood. You let me accuse you of terrible things and never once said—”

“I didn't want to,” Ellie said, since that _was_ true. She didn't want to let him accuse her, and she didn't want to lie and say she was pregnant. “There is something I do want you to do for me.”

“Anything.”

She reached into her pocket. “I need you to open this watch.”

“What?”

She took a deep breath and let it out again. “It's yours, I swear it is. I—I got it for you. It's new, that's why you didn't recognize it. It was a present for when... when I told you about all of this.”

Hardy snorted. “All you had to do was tell me. I don't need presents. I just wanted the truth. And you. It sickens me sometimes how much I need you.”

“I know,” she said, hating herself for it. “And I need you, which is why you have to open this watch. Now.”


	13. Time for Change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie convinces Hardy to open the watch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A part of me does wonder why I went this path with this story. Not only have I accidentally made a Doctor Who episode into something where he's far from the focus, I think I picked the path that causes almost everyone the most pain. Something must be wrong with me.
> 
> And I'm so not over that last episode or that it's the last ever, and I hate that so much. *sigh*

* * *

“Why does the watch matter so damned much?” Hardy asked, frowning. He didn't see the point of it, not when she'd just told him she was having a child— _his_ child. A part of him almost wanted to doubt it, after as strange as she'd been, but he knew everything odd she'd done was covered by the anxiety she had to feel over her condition. He knew that he was concerned, since she had almost died the last time—not that there weren't other factors involved—Joe had tried to kill her first, angry when she tried to stop him from killing their son, but she'd still miscarried. The doctor had said she was lucky to be alive.

And yes, the idea of her going through that again was a bit terrifying, but they'd get through this. He refused to let anything happen to her.

“It does,” she said, and he watched her, waiting for more of an explanation. “Can't you just open it and see why it's important?”

He continued to frown, and she placed it in his hand. He felt it again, as he had before, a strange tug on his mind, and he grimaced as he touched the lid to open it. Images assailed him, him and Ellie with the new baby, Daisy holding her little brother in her arms with a wide grin, Daisy at her wedding, Ellie cursing him for something their son had done, the boy growing older and becoming a man, all the way up to his own death, Ellie at his side.

He dropped the watch. “Bloody hell.”

“Hardy?”

“What was that?” Hardy asked, touching his head. He stopped, getting his first real look at where they were, and he thought he must be dreaming all of this. Ellie's pregnancy, the bizarre room, everything. “I don't... where are we?”

“In the TARDIS,” she answered, and he frowned again. “You know what it is. You just don't remember. I promise, if you open the watch, you'll know everything. Please. Trust me on this.”

That didn't sound right. “I don't think I want anything to do with that thing. Why are you so insistent on this?”

She sighed. “Should have known this wouldn't be easy. Hardy, you're... Remember a few minutes ago when you said you'd do anything for me? Can we go back to that?”

“That was before that watch... gave me a vision of the future,” Hardy said. “What is that thing?”

“A fob watch,” she answered. “It really is. I'm not lying. It's just a watch. So, let's go back to you being all soppy and willing to do whatever I ask—you can even kiss me again if you want—and then we'll do the watch opening and everything will be clear. I promise.”

She picked up the watch, and he continued to frown at her, not at all sure what any of this was. She held it out to him and stopped. “Wait, what do you mean you saw the future?”

“The baby's a boy, Daisy marries a man who's a bit too much like her uncle, you blame me for all our son's misdeeds, he grows up and gets married, Daisy has a few kids, we get old together, and then we die,” he summarized. “It was unsettling somehow, even if none of it was overtly unpleasant.”

She frowned that time. “Oh. Um... Well, I suppose that's what it could be. Um... So, about that whole thing where you—”

He kissed her, and this was more like what he remembered of them, without her pulling away or acting like they'd never kissed before. She seemed to sag against him some, and he thought maybe this was too much for her, maybe even a sign that the pregnancy was going wrong.

“Ellie?”

She looked up at him. “Why are you any good at that?”

“What?”

“Never mind. Just... open the watch. Please.”

“Only if you promise me we'll go inside and you'll rest afterward. This can't be good for you, whatever this is.”

“Fine,” she said. “Open the watch.”

And he did.

* * *

“Bloody hell, Miller, what did you do?”

Ellie found herself a bit relieved that Hardy sounded like himself—not that he hadn't before, more or less, but he was calling her Miller now, and that seemed almost promising. It was less promising that he'd dropped the watch again and fallen to his knees. He looked like he was in pain, even if reversing the arch seemed to be a bit less painful than doing it the first time.

She knelt next to him, picking up the watch. “Hardy?”

“Don't touch me,” he said, leaning back against the central console. He closed his eyes, drawing in a breath and letting it out, repeating the process a few times before he opened his eyes again.

“Um, so...” Ellie began. “Which Hardy are you?”

“That is a bloody stupid question,” he muttered, putting a hand to his head with another grimace. “That hurt enough the first time around. Not that it should be easier to rewrite a person's genetics the second time, but damn. Getting shot hurts less.”

“You've been shot?”

He didn't answer. “I have this whole other life in my head. It's not mine, but it almost feels like it is. Wait, has it only been a little over a week?”

She nodded. “Yeah, it has.”

“Why the hell did you make me open that damned thing, then?”

“Hello, green light in the blood sky, or did you forget that?” Ellie asked, a little harsher than she intended to, though she supposed she didn't really _want_ him looking at those memories closer than he had already. She did not need him remembering their whole “marriage.” Not that she didn't think that she'd have to tell him so he knew how to act in front of the others, but she'd like to avoid that. Maybe they could stop this whole thing now.

“Right,” Hardy muttered. “Should have seen the damned ship, but I swear there was nothing in that field. Still... they don't know we're here, not necessarily. Why didn't you wait? They haven't made a move.”

“K-9 said they would be coming heavily armed, and your mother suggested that we destroy the part of their ship that allows them to travel.”

“You do realize—you spoke to my mother?—no, don't tell me about that right now,” Hardy muttered, pulling himself up to his feet again. He rubbed his arms like they were sore, letting himself rest against the console again. “Heavily armed?”

“They're Ethiopian—no, damn it, Ethaboobs—oh, hell,” Ellie muttered, and she thought she saw a bit of a smile on his face.

“Etheabosians?”

“That's it,” she said, glad he knew what she meant. “I take it that was a part of your bedtime story by dog thing, then. You know about them? Because K-9 said he had gaps in his memory banks about them, but what he did know sounded bad, and I know that these people aren't really friends, but I couldn't just let them kill the town trying to draw the Doctor out.”

“I know what he knows,” Hardy said. “And yes, they're dangerous. They would raze the town to get at their prey, but they can't find the Doctor as he is now. They can find me, which is bloody brilliant, Miller. Thanks for that.”

She balled her fists. “Don't you dare put this on me. I didn't ask for any of this. I've had nothing but trouble since I came along on this damned trip, and I did what I thought I had to do. You're only half Time Lord, and you know enough about this stuff you could stop them. Besides, didn't you say before this was a shite plan, the hiding?”

“That doesn't mean that I wanted to wake early and put a giant target on my backside,” Hardy griped. He rubbed his head again, starting to pace. “Their ship has to be cloaked, though the power to generate that might show up on the TARDIS' sensors. Might even be able to track it with the sonic screwdriver...”

“That can open the locks, right?”

“In theory.”

She grimaced. She had hoped that was more of a guarantee than not, but at least it might work. “Okay, so we go back out there, find the ship, and then we get inside, disable it, and we're good, right?”

“What happens when you're taken as a host?”

She winced. “Do we know of any way to prevent that?”

“No. This is why, despite the fact that hiding was a shite plan, it was still the only plan we had,” Hardy grumbled. “I didn't like it, Miller, but it was what had to be done. Now you've gone and mucked it up.”

“Oi, don't you start,” she said. “This is not all on me. We stand a better chance with you having your proper memories, so just... shut it. This way we can fight back, not just sit and wait for them to do something horrible. What do you think your father was going to do? His plan has to be about the same as ours. Except I meant to ask you if you thought you could build a containment field like the TARDIS has and Jack had—”

“It's possible there's one here in the TARDIS like the one he has,” Hardy said. “Trouble is knowing where the Doctor put it, and I do think it only works on one person at a time. Not very efficient, considering it's a family.”

“It could be a lot worse.”

“Don't ever say that,” he grumbled, walking toward the door. “It will be, just you wait.”

“Don't get lost in there,” she called after him. She bit her lip, frowning at the doorway. Well, it had almost gone better than she'd expected. She just wished she didn't have the terrible feeling this was only the calm before the storm.

* * *

“It was just the memories the TARDIS gave you.”

Hardy almost stumbled over a root, not sure he dared look at Miller, even if he didn't think she could see much of his face in the night. She'd wanted to wait until morning to go after the Etheabosian ship, but he wasn't in the mood for that. Being practical was far from what he wanted, not now, not here, not with another version of himself in his head, his memories clouding over everything.

And bringing some rather unpleasant truths to the forefront when he'd apparently been very good at denying them even to himself.

“What are you on about now, Miller?”

“This... us... thing. It was just the memories the TARDIS gave you, not about... anything else.”

Hardy didn't say anything to that. She wanted confirmation, wanted him to say he felt nothing, and he couldn't, since he still held those same memories she was pushing about, and that wasn't just something the TARDIS did. The TARDIS couldn't _make_ him feel anything, memories or no memories. She might be a sentient time ship that was telepathic, but she couldn't force feelings. She spoke to him mostly in nudges.

This wasn't her doing.

“Hardy?”

“We shouldn't do much talking,” he said instead. “No sense in calling further attention to ourselves, since I might already be a bloody magnet for them.”

“I suppose that makes sense, but I can hardly see you, so how am I to know where you are? And I don't want to get separated from you now. What if one of us gets taken as a host? Oh, god, what happens if I do? I don't know what I'd do—what about the boys?”

“Beth would take them in if worst came to worst, and Daisy has Tess, though I'd like to avoid that if at all possible,” Hardy said. He didn't want his daughter back with his wife, even if he'd thought that was for the best when Sandbrook and his marriage fell apart. “The idea was not to get taken.”

“Then why are we going there in the dark when neither of us can see?”

“Because it's a bloody long walk, and by the time we get there, there should be some light. Do you have to question _everything_ I say, Miller?”

“You should probably go back to calling me Ellie,” she told him, and he grimaced, even if she couldn't see it. “You know everyone thought the worst of me when they believed that I was acting strangely. If you start doing it, they'll think I've corrupted you.”

“They won't.”

“This is such a bad idea.”

He didn't entirely disagree, not when he was having difficulty telling where to walk and was a bit concerned that they wouldn't know if the Etheabosians were on them, but he wasn't turning back. He wanted to have this done, not drawn out. He didn't like the idea of faking a marriage between them any more than she did.

“You think that we can do this?”

“Miller, why are you still talking?” Hardy asked, turning to face her. He caught her by the arm. “We are out in the middle of the night when no sane person would be, making us that much more suspicious, so why can't you keep your mouth shut for five minutes?”

“Oh, bloody hell. I almost miss when you were in love with me,” she grumbled. “Oh, bollocks. I didn't mean that. I just—I wish you were easier to deal with. You're being impossible. It's dark, we're doing something stupid, and I keep talking because I need reassurance. It's not a crime. It's just how it is. I need something, and don't think you don't. You've got technology and a lot of anger to get you through this. I've just got... you.”

“I think you've got the anger, too.”

She laughed. “Oh, hell. You're right. I do. I suppose you want me to fuel it?”

“No, I want you to be quiet.”

* * *

Hardy's silence was getting to her again, and Ellie would almost rather he snapped at her. She wanted him to say _something._ She knew he didn't want to attract attention to them, but they were already risking that just by what he was, even with his biodamper and perception filter back in place. They didn't know that it would mask him at all, but they had to try. Still, he didn't have to keep her to absolute silence. All she could do was wonder and worry—did he remember everything about the last week or so? 

God, that was embarrassing.

She'd made a mess of things, and she'd made it worse trying to fix them. She really wished she hadn't had to trick him into opening the watch. A part of him must hate her for that, even if he probably was relieved to be himself again.

Or was he?

“Hardy, about waking you up—”

“Miller, I swear—”

“You are glad I did it, aren't you? Like, you wouldn't have wanted to stay in the past even if that is still your home in the future, and you didn't actually like being the laird—you were the most yourself when someone killed those sheep and you could investigate. It was like seeing you again. I never thought I'd miss you.”

“You're ridiculous. Stop talking.”

She sighed. “Are you always going to be this impossible? I just want—you think this is worth trying, don't you? You do, or you'd have stolen the TARDIS and ran, right? I mean, Daisy and the Doctor would be safe if you did, since you'd be leading the Family far away from them, and you could always send it back to us later, even if something happened to you. Rose and Martha said there was an emergency protocol that was supposed to take them back home if something happened to the Doctor.”

“What is your point?”

“I just made it,” she said. “You think it's worth trying to stop them. I'm sure of that, at least. So I did the right thing, getting you back where you could help.”

“I resent the implication that I was a complete idiot when I wasn't half-Time Lord,” Hardy said. “I didn't go through my life as an entitled half-alien. I got where I did by being bloody human, and I was fine with that. I didn't need to be something else. I didn't want it.”

“I didn't say you did, just that... I think—I hope I did the right thing,” she said. She reached out to touch his arm. “I didn't—I didn't want to wake you just because of the whole—that wasn't it. I didn't want to put you more at risk. It just seemed like the best way to save everyone.”

Hardy hit her with the sonic screwdriver. She stared at him.

“What was that for?”

“Because I either want to shout at you or hit you ten times as hard, and I can't because you'll bring them down on us,” he answered. “Now, shut up. We should be getting close now, and I don't want your voice being the reason we get caught.”

She glared at him. She did miss the other him. He'd been grumpy, paranoid, and suspicious, but a hell of a lot easier to deal with. “What about the sheep? It's not like they're connected to the Family.”

“Oh, they're connected to a family, just not the one you think. Now quiet.”

“What?”

He put a hand over her mouth, dragging her close to him and down close to the ground. She started to fight, but over her own struggles she heard something moving through the trees. She stilled, swallowing. She didn't suppose the green gas aliens glowed the same way as their ship? That would make them easy to spot—if they did, though, that meant that the aliens already had a human host because she still couldn't see anything.

And then, out of nowhere, she did, a large shadow, looming over them.


	14. Time for Turning Around

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hardy and Miller find a member of the Family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I miscalculated, badly, as I have not quite figured out how to balance any of the plots this story should be carrying. Some characters don't seem to have one, others keep getting ignored, and some characters have more focus than others, which wasn't the plan. The plot led a certain way, things happened, and this is the result, which makes me wish I'd reconsidered this one, since I am not doing justice to the ideas that I had at the start.

* * *

“I know you're there,” Hadden said, and Hardy grimaced, though he'd expected as much, almost certain that whoever came near them had to be one of the Etheabosians. They would not have wasted much time in gaining a host, which was why the Doctor had tried to run for as long as he had, trying to keep the Family from gaining new hosts to prolong their lives.

The one consolation being that Hardy was almost certain Hadden was a life-long bachelor with no siblings, meaning he lived alone and only one of the Family had been able to take a host.

Then again, he didn't like knowing that it was Hadden, either, even if he wasn't the one who killed the sheep. Hardy had a new theory about that, one that he thought he'd gotten after he regained his memories, which was unfortunate because Miller would go off on his half-alien side being better at this than the rest of him.

He almost wished it was possible to make her forget _all_ of this, not just this last week, which was almost a necessity now.

“You're off your land,” Hardy told him, and Miller hit him. Another second and she'd be biting his hand. He grimaced and let her go, though he'd like to keep her quiet for longer. She wasn't going to restrain herself now, not when he knew who he really was.

“No, this is my land. You should not be on it,” Hadden said, and if Hardy hadn't known already that he'd been taken over, he did now. The man should have insulted him by now, and he hadn't. He didn't even seem to recognize him, which wasn't entirely surprising. “What do you think you're doing?”

“I was making sure no one killed more sheep.”

“What?”

Miller stopped squirming, and Hardy hoped she understood what was going on now, even if she should have had a good idea before. He rose to face the other man, knowing that if he was going to be discovered, it had already happened.

“McKinney's sheep were butchered, remember?” Hardy prompted, and Hadden turned his head at an unnatural angle, another clear sign he wasn't who he once was. “I came out to see if their killer came back when it was dark.”

“Sheep.”

“Well, he is the laird. It's kind of his job to make sure everyone's safe around here, even sheep,” Miller said. “Think about it. If there's a dangerous predator about, he has to stop it.”

“You have your female with you?”

“Ah, well, I sent my brother to watch the other end of the field, and this one didn't want me going off alone,” Hardy answered. “Why are you out here?”

“Sheep. Was checking on my sheep.”

“Well, now that we've all seen that the sheep are in good hands, we should be going,” Miller said, tugging on Hardy's arm. “Back home, then. Cup of tea and a good night's sleep for all of us.”

“Wait. There is something about you,” Hadden said. “Something different.”

“She's from England, since you seem to have missed that,” Hardy muttered. “Come on, back to the house. It's late, and you shouldn't be out in this weather in your condition.”

Hadden stayed where he was, but Hardy pushed Miller forward, pushing her back toward the house as fast as he could make her go. He knew they weren't going to get near the ship now, and he couldn't let either of them be taken as a host.

* * *

“What are we going to do now?” Ellie asked as they got closer to the house. Hardy had been quiet, and she'd followed suit, not wanting to say anything that the Family shouldn't hear. She didn't know if they had good hearing or not, but since she could see the lights from Dùn Ùine, she thought they were close enough to where they'd be safe now. “That guy is one of them, isn't he? The Family? And he knows what you are.”

“They all suspect it,” Hardy said, putting a hand to his head and stopping to lean against a tree. “Bloody hell. That arch did something to my shields. Damn it.”

“Hardy?”

“I could hear them. In my head,” he ground out, and she stared at him, wanting him to be wrong about that. The Family being telepathic was bad enough, but having one of them hear his thoughts was a complete disaster, and she didn't know how they would fix any of this. She never should have woken them.

“You think they can hear you? Do they know you can hear them?”

He winced. “No more talking, Miller. Just get me back to the ship. I'll use her shielding to block them out until I can figure out how to fix my own.”

Ellie nodded, letting him lean on her as they made their way back to the copse where the TARDIS waited. She really had made a mess of things, hadn't she? He was awake too soon, the Family knew what he was, and they would come for him. They hadn't even found the Family's ship. Though, then again, part of that was his fault, since he had insisted on going out in the dark.

She stopped at the TARDIS, opening the door and waiting for him to go inside first. She turned and pulled it shut behind her.

“Any better?”

He nodded, crossing over to the console. “I'm actually glad to have her in my head for once. Damn, I think part of it is losing the connection to Daisy. That feels so bloody strange, especially after the whole Hoelf thing.”

Ellie couldn't begin to know what that was like for him. “Did you hear anything from them when they were in your head to know what they'll do?”

“They were arguing about it,” Hardy said, rubbing his temple. “They didn't get a good look at the Doctor when they sensed him on that planet, or he would have grabbed me then, I'm sure. We look too much alike.”

“Agreed,” Ellie said. “You two are practically twins, only he looks a bit younger, which just gets incredibly weird knowing he's nine hundred years old.”

“It would seem my scent is different from his.”

“Like stale suit and burnt toast, I suppose.”

Hardy snorted. “I should be so lucky. I have memories of a bloody kilt. And no, that's not how it is. Time Lords are separate from time itself, and that scent is what they've been able to track. I think. It's not like they're attracted to every time traveler.”

“So, they're not convinced it's you, that you're a Time Lord,” Ellie said, relieved. “That's good. That means we still have a chance to get close enough to disable their ship.”

“Maybe.”

“Must you do that?” Ellie asked, frustrated. “We could use a bit of optimism for a change. This is all one giant nightmare, and you can't let us have a two second delusion that we can actually fix this. I need to believe we can stop them without you getting taken as host.”

“It's not happening,” Hardy said. He looked back as the TARDIS doors opened. Martha stepped in and stopped, staring at him.

“Oh, Ellie. Tell me you didn't.”

Ellie shook her head. “I told you, Martha. I didn't think we could risk the town, and I still don't. Hardy and I already came across someone who's been taken as host, and there will be others. We can't pretend hiding is going to work.”

“If you've seen one of them as a host, that means they know you're a Time Lord,” Martha said, looking at Hardy in dismay. “The whole point of hiding was—”

“I know what the point was,” Hardy snapped. “It was never going to work.”

* * *

“Exactly what do you know about how all of this ends, Hardy?” Ellie asked, frowning. Martha had to wonder the same thing, since she was afraid they'd already lost with Ellie waking Hardy early. This was too dangerous. They should have waited. Even if the Family already had one host, at least they wouldn't have known about Alec.

“I don't know anything,” he said, “other than this whole arching thing had to happen, as it and something else _did_ happen, and those things are... set in my timeline, as I have participated in events after they occurred.”

Martha felt a headache coming on. “You're sure you don't know anything else about what's supposed to happen? No details at all? What about the Family? Do we know any more about them?”

“Only what K-9 apparently already told Miller,” Alec answered, rubbing his head. “I need time to think and a bit of quiet to repair the mental shields the chameleon arch broke, so you two out.”

“Mental shields?” Martha asked. “Wait, these things are telepathic?”

“Makes a bit of sense when you think about it,” Ellie said. “They're gas, so how would they communicate without a host? Smoke signals?”

“Miller,” Alec grumbled, not sounding the least bit amused. “I said out. I need to work on my shielding. You are a distraction that does not help anyone. One of you needs to stay on watch to make sure they didn't track us back to the TARDIS, and the other needs to get some sleep. Do it in shifts. Don't argue. Get out.”

“And we're back to why they called you Shitface,” Ellie muttered, shaking her head. “Come on, Martha. We'll leave Mr. Grumpy here on his own, and once we do that, everyone will be a lot happier.”

“What happens if the Family shows up and block us from the TARDIS?”

“Wake Daisy,” Alec said, and Ellie turned to gape at him. “No, Miller, as a matter of fact, I don't like it, but Daisy and I still share a bond, and even if you can't reach me, I'll know. Now, go.”

Ellie nodded, pulling Martha with her as she left the TARDIS. She didn't like this, didn't want to leave like this, but she wasn't sure what else to do. Ellie had already gone behind her back, and Martha thought that would happen again.

Martha stopped outside the door, shutting the door behind her. “Before we go back inside, I think we should talk. We agreed on a course of action, and you didn't even discuss changing it with me. I was in the TARDIS, working on the plan we'd agreed to, and then you went and changed everything.”

“After I told you what Sarah Jane and K-9 told me,” Ellie said. “You didn't want to hear anything but that we were waiting for the Family to make a move, hoping that they wouldn't notice the Doctor or Hardy. I weighed that likelihood against the possibility that they'd know Hardy was half-Time Lord and his ability to do something against them, and I went with it. I didn't tell you because I knew what your answer was.”

“Ellie—”

“I'm sorry, but I still think it was the right thing to do,” Ellie said. “I mean, no, I'm not completely without doubts and a bit of regret, but it's not like I didn't think about it or discuss it with you or even do it for the wrong reasons.”

“I understand you thought you were right. I'm just angry. And worried.”

“So am I, and if something goes wrong, I will take responsibility for it, and I will live with that blame for the rest of my life,” Ellie said. “I still think that Hardy can do this. He is a cranky, miserable knob, but he is good at what he does.”

“Stopping aliens?”

“Okay, that's more of a sideline for him—he's a damned good cop, much as it annoys me to admit that. I hated him when we first met. I still do half the time, and I'm not happy about him dragging me into this alien nonsense, but that doesn't mean I don't think that he can stop them. Or at least that he can help. If that man hadn't found us, we could have located the ship and stopped them tonight. Maybe.”

“Why go at night? Why not wait until it was daytime and you could see?”

“Someone was angry,” Ellie answered. “I tried to talk to him out of it, but he insisted, so I went along with him to minimize the damage.”

“And you still think you made the right choice?”

Ellie shrugged. “He actually works better when he's angry.”

* * *

Hardy checked the readout, aware of the women finally moving away from the TARDIS. They'd talked for an irritatingly long time, but it was enough. He had to take the chance now, since he would not be free to move around later. Someone would be watching, and with the Family aware of what he was, he had to do something. He had little choice in the matter, not knowing what he was up against—or Miller, for that matter.

He grimaced, wondering if it would be possible to convince her to forget all of this. If this proved to be as traumatic as it was shaping up to be, she might agree, and that would make the rest of this easier. He knew that he couldn't forget, much as it would be nice to return to when certain things were not known—or at least acknowledged—not even by him.

He'd had that thought a lot since learning who his father was.

He shook his head, ignoring that for now as he slipped out of the TARDIS. Miller was right about sabotaging the ship, and that did seem like the only course of action that had even the remotest possibility of success. His father might have had a better one, but he didn't, and he felt it again, that sensation he was very familiar with—that he was up against a clock and fast running out of time.

He headed back out into the fields for the third time, already tired of this journey. He would rather not go at all, but he knew that delaying wouldn't help anyone. Even if he was exhausted, he had to do this. His shields were back up, though he wondered if it might not be useful to have them down. He just wasn't sure if they could get any of his thoughts that way, and he'd rather not risk that. He couldn't have them knowing what he was planning.

He took some small comfort in knowing that even if he were to completely cock it up, his father was safe and could probably stop him if he was taken as a host. He didn't want to leave Daisy alone, even if she still had a mother back home, but there was at least one fail safe in place.

It was still a shite plan. Everything about this was, but that wasn't that unusual for him, so he accepted it and moved on.

This time it would be light by the time he got there, and he had a feeling that he might find the ship abandoned, since the Family would be looking to secure hosts for the others. That would suit him fine.

If not, at least he was keeping everyone away from Dùn Ùine for now. The others would be safe, Daisy and Miller and his father, and that was all he cared about.

The rest of it didn't matter.

Which was probably a good thing, considering how likely it was he would get himself killed.


	15. Time to Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie and Martha discover what Hardy did, and the others leave the house, leading to some other discoveries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to change a bit of what I intended to do with Daisy's part, but as I said before, I realized the balance of the story had gotten a little... off. Daisy was always meant to have a storyline of her own that tied into the larger scheme, and I inadvertently left that behind a bit when I was focused on the other parts. Now that part is a little changed, but it still works.
> 
> Though it was very difficult to get to this after a day of agonizing about whether or not I could write Ellie, I threw out what I did write and did this instead, though I don't even know if it improves the issue with Ellie. I do kind of wish I never started this story, though.

* * *

Ellie didn't sleep.

Martha had told her to take the first shift since she intended to go back to the TARDIS after Hardy was done in there, and Ellie had gone upstairs, almost sure she wasn't sleeping, either, but she knew that Martha was angry with her and they needed distance. She didn't blame the other woman for being angry—she'd gone behind Martha's back to do what she did. And there was a good chance she'd been wrong about all of it.

She pulled the pillow over her head and groaned, not wanting to think about it. She'd been so sure she was doing the right thing, but now... she was less so. Her doubts seemed to pile up with each minute that passed, and she was getting eaten up by the guilt she'd thought she could handle.

If she got Hardy killed—or taken as a host—she'd never forgive herself. She knew that. She'd known that before she started. She'd just hoped that it was worth everything she was risking, and it had seemed like it was, since she'd thought maybe they could take out the Family before anyone got hurt or taken as a host.

She'd been wrong. That was the first thing they'd done, apparently.

Whoever that man was, he was already gone, and others would be, too, if the Family was loose. She'd messed it all up, and maybe Martha's unspoken accusation—or was this Ellie's own guilt?—was right. Maybe she _had_ done this because she couldn't take pretending to be Hardy's wife one second longer.

She winced at the thought, the memory of the way he'd kissed her coming back to her. She swore he didn't know how to do anything halfway, and that was definitely there in the kiss, and she hated herself for getting one like that and not feeling the same way.

Now he knew, and how painful was that?

She was a horrible person, waking him up to this, putting his life in danger, and while she'd tried to be there for him and help, she knew she hadn't. She should have left things alone, and she hadn't. And she wished she could stop thinking about all of this, since her recrimination wasn't helping anything. She just had to live with what she'd done, as she'd also told Martha. She had could try and make it better, but she didn't know that she could.

She heard a creak by her door and sat up, looking over. She would have been relieved, for once, to see Hardy coming in, but it wasn't him.

“Oh. You're awake.”

Ellie swallowed, knowing in an instant that Martha's presence was not a good sign. “What happened?”

“He's not in the TARDIS,” Martha told her, and Ellie tried, very hard, not to swear under her breath. “I was going to tell him that was where I usually slept, and he wasn't there. I looked around for a bit, and while it is possible to get lost in there, I'm pretty sure he's gone.”

“Well, you can say it if you want,” Ellie said, rising from the bed and going to grab clothes. “You were right. I was wrong. I shouldn't have woken him.”

Martha grimaced. “I don't know that I wouldn't have. I mean... it is a little safer than waking all of them, and he does seem to know a lot of what the Doctor does, though I still wish you'd waited.”

“I may have been unwilling to stay and pretend I was pregnant,” Ellie admitted, wincing again. She rubbed her head. “I know it's not the same, but I can't help wondering how Tess could ever have traded that for someone else. Maybe it was the job, maybe he was more of a wanker to her, but here, with me... I don't deserve any of what he gave me, and I was no good at pretending I felt the same. Not that it matters. We have to find where he went.”

“You have any ideas about that?” Martha prompted. “You were with him last.”

“I can only assume he decided that going back to find the Family's ship was his best option,” Ellie told her. “We should head that way, then, though I'm not sure what we can do if he has been taken as a host.”

“The man you said was a host. Who is he?”

Ellie grimaced. “I never got his name. I think the Doctor would know who he was. We could... wake him and warn him that... well, we'd have to say that man was the one who killed the sheep and Hardy went to confront him.”

“That's a bad idea. If they see how much the Doctor and Alec look alike—”

“They took someone from town. I think they should already know.”

“Still, bringing the Doctor near them can't be a good idea.”

“No, it's not, but they'd at least know to be careful,” Ellie said, grimacing. “It's all I can think of, and I know we don't trust my plans since they don't go right, but what happens if they run across that man without any warning?”

“Right, no, we can't have that,” Martha agreed. “Still, if we _do_ tell him, then he's bound to go after his son—brother—point is, he's loyal. He'd go for Alec, no matter what we tell him about the risk.”

“Which is exactly what his son did,” Ellie said. “Hardy went to stop this without anyone else being at risk. He went to sacrifice himself. Bloody idiot. Then again, so am I, so why am I even—never mind. We'll... we'll leave a note and then go find Hardy. Hopefully, he'll still be alive when we do.”

* * *

_The Dalek fired, and another innocent died before him, a flash of blue light and crumpling body. He watched in horror, unable to stop the slaughter. He couldn't let this happen, but it was happening everywhere. People were dying by the millions. He could kill a Dalek, but twenty more would take its place in an endless cycle of war, their numbers never ending, always coming again and again..._

_He fired his own weapon, hating himself for it as he did, and the Dalek died, but then he heard their cry from behind him, and two more were there. He fired again, twice, dodging as the returning fire came close to him._

_Two more Daleks dead, but the screams from the others told him that he hadn't won. He would never win. No one would, not in this war._

Jamie woke, shuddering, and Rose's arms were around him a moment later, holding him as he shook. He didn't know how long she'd been awake, but he welcomed her touch, wanting it to keep him here and now, not allow him back into that nightmare world that had seemed so real.

“I'm here,” Rose told him, and she was, he knew. He covered her hand with his, moving his fingers over it to soothe himself.

“How long have you been awake?”

“A bit,” Rose said. “I was dreaming about the golden light again, but this time it scared me. I couldn't go back to sleep after that, but then you started tossing and turning real bad, so I didn't even bother. I almost woke you.”

“I almost wish you had,” he admitted. “Some of those dreams of mine are wonderful, but that one... That was just death. Endless death.”

She tightened her grip. “I feel like something here is ending, and the golden light was some kind of... warning. It wanted me to do something about it, but I don't know what I could do or what that means. I'm just... me.”

“Never doubt that you're special,” Jamie told her. “You are, and you're everything to me. Don't start on my brother and his family. I need you, and you know it.”

She kissed his cheek, and he smiled back at her before reluctantly pulling himself out of her arms. He was awake now, with all that entailed, and his body was starting to make some things known to him that had been dormant in his sleep—specifically his need to use the loo. He sat up and frowned when he saw the paper on the nightstand beside the bed.

He reached for it and read it over before swearing aloud.

“What is it?”

“This says my brother figured out who killed the sheep and went to confront him about it,” Jamie said, shaking his head. He couldn't believe this. He was going to have to hurt someone—or at least yell a lot—when he found them. In the first place, what was Alec thinking, going off after a killer, alone? Sure, the man had only killed sheep, but that didn't mean he wasn't dangerous. He was. “And Ellie went after him.”

“In her condition?” Rose asked, frowning. “She should know better than that. I thought all the fuss was because she was scared of being pregnant, so now she's going after him when he's chasing a killer? That's insane.”

“Apparently, they both are,” Jamie said. “I could have sworn that Alec and I both agreed it wasn't Hadden yesterday. Why would he change his mind like this?”

Rose shook her head. “I don't know, but I suppose we should go see if we can find him. He could be hurt, and he'll need you if he is.”

Jamie nodded, going to get dressed. He pulled out a clean shirt and started buttoning it up as Rose changed from her nightdress.

“Do you think we should tell Daisy?”

“She's almost grown, but there's no sense in worrying her about all this. She'd only be able to fret about her father and her stepmother, and what good would that do?” Jamie asked, shaking his head. “No, we'll let her be for now. If she can sleep, let her stay that way. No need alarming her to no purpose. We'll see what her father's done to himself, and then we'll deal with the rest of it.”

Rose nodded, pulling on her own blouse as she did. “You don't think he's gotten himself hurt, do you? If that was what my dream was about, then I don't—”

“You may be fretting for nothing. We both might,” Jamie said, going back to her side. He touched her cheek, and she leaned against him. He held onto her, wanting to believe that they would all be fine and this crisis was nothing like what he imagined.

* * *

Daisy woke slowly, aware of the sunshine coming in through her windows. She could tell it was late, and it surprised her, being able to sleep at all after last night. She'd thought she'd be too excited, what with her stepmother actually having a baby, but she had. She had wanted it, didn't want to be alone, didn't want her father's land to pass to some stranger since she found it unlikely that Jamie would ever have children. She knew it wasn't something he could choose, but if he could, he would, since he was all about traveling and never being in one place.

She grimaced, not sure she wanted to care about any of that or think about it. She rose, crossing over to get herself dressed. She didn't want to stay in bed any longer, and she wanted to know what her father and uncle were planning to do about the green light and the sheep.

She finished, heading down the stairs two at a time. When she reached the bottom, she stopped, frowning. The house was too quiet. She didn't hear anyone at all, and that was strange with four other adults and one servant living here.

“Da? Ellie? Uncle Jamie? Aunt Rose?” Daisy called, checking each room in turn. She didn't understand. Her family was gone. Even Martha was out of the house. She didn't see any of them, and no one was responding to her calls.

She didn't like this, but maybe they'd just all gone out to town before she got up. She knew her father didn't want her going there because of the sheep killer, so they would have left her behind and not woken her.

She shook her head at that, annoyed with all of them treating her like she was still a baby. She left the house and headed down the path to town. She hoped it wouldn't take too long to find the others, but she didn't know.

“Miss Hardy?”

She stopped, frowning. That was that boy again, the one that had called her the Maid of Dùn Ùine. She supposed he had the name right this time, but why was he bothering her? “What do you want?”

He flushed, getting a little red. “I... I just wanted to talk to you.”

Daisy blinked. “Um... why?”

He laughed. “You have to ask that? You're the only girl around here for miles. Why wouldn't anyone want to talk to you?”

Daisy had noticed the lack of people her own age. The town seemed to have plenty of people older than her father, the same age as him, or young children, and that was about all. This boy was the only one she could remember seeing that was her age. Still, that didn't mean anything. “Who are you?”

“Calan.”

Daisy folded her arms over her chest. “Just Calan, is it? There a name that goes with that?”

“No. I mean, yes,” he said, getting flustered. “I'm sorry. I don't get to talk to many people. Just my maw, and she's... Most people don't like her. No, no one does. I just want to be me, not what she wants me to be. I thought maybe... maybe you know what that's like. You didn't seem to like being called 'Maid of Dùn Ùine.'”

“I'm actually not that,” Daisy said. “Dùn Ùine has to pass to a male. It's not mine. So if that's what you're after, you can just forget it, okay? Forget it.”

He shook his head. “I'm not after that. I swear I don't want Dùn Ùine. She does, but I don't. She's the one what does. I don't care about any of that.”

Daisy stared at him, her mind spinning, almost dizzying her with what she just realized. She had to be wrong about that, didn't she? She couldn't help thinking she was right, though. “The old laird... was he your father? Are we... cousins?”

Calan stared at her. “Why would you ask me that?”

She thought about the picture she'd seen, the one Martha had of her father, uncle, and their parents. That was the first time she'd seen them, but she could see more of her grandfather in this boy across from her than she did in her father or her uncle.

“It's true, isn't it?” Daisy pressed. “You _are_ my cousin. The laird was your father. That's why your mother cares about Dùn Ùine. She thinks it should be yours, doesn't she?”


	16. Time for a Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The others gather and find out what Daisy learned from her new friend.

* * *

“I don't see him anywhere.”

“Well, unfortunately, chances are he got himself taken as a host and won't be seen until he goes crazy on the town,” Ellie admitted, and Martha looked over at her. She grimaced, rubbing her head as she took another look around the field. “I should have made him give us all something that would help us see past the cloaking field. Well, you and me at least, but I didn't think of that last night. God, I keep messing this up—I shouldn't even be here. This would probably have gone so much better if I wasn't.”

“We don't know that,” Martha said. Ellie's plan to wake Alec first might have been the right one. “And remember—we can still wake the Doctor to stop him if that did happen.”

“Which is going to kill him because seriously—he did a lot of crazy things to keep his son alive and save time,” Ellie muttered, shaking her head. “Fine. Back to town, then. Whatever they do, they'll be there next. That's pretty much a given unless they go right for Dùn Ùine.”

Martha nodded, picking up her skirt as they started back toward town. “We can't assume they will, and since we don't want anyone in town to be hurt, we should start there. That way we'll know and might be able to save someone or warn them.”

“And we did leave that note for the Doctor and Rose, so hopefully they'll know to be cautious and—oh, bloody hell, is that them?” Ellie asked, and Martha turned to look toward where Ellie had pointed. The couple coming closer did seem to be familiar, and Rose's bleach blonde hair did tend to stand out here, where peroxide was not available. Well, at least they would be together, and they could keep them away from the ship and the possibility of becoming hosts.

“Well, part of that is a good thing,” Martha said, and Ellie nodded, though Martha knew she was still worried about Alec's disappearance. They could have been wrong about where he went, and maybe he was somewhere deeper in the TARDIS than Martha had ever been, but that seemed unlikely.

“Ellie?” the Doctor called, leaving Rose's side to jog over to them. “What are you doing out here? You should be resting—this is no sort of walk to take in your condition. The distance alone—and the potential risk—Alec must be frantic. Where is he?”

“I've no idea,” Ellie said, looking around the field. “I thought he'd be here, but we haven't seen any sign of him.”

“Is this even that man Hadden's field?” Rose asked, frowning as she joined them. “I know you said that he was the one who killed McKinney's sheep, but this doesn't seem like the right place, more like where we tried to find that green light.”

“Yes, I do think you're correct, Rose. Why are we here? Did you get lost, Ellie?”

Martha could tell the other woman wanted to deny it, say she knew damned well where she was and why, but Ellie forced a smile and nodded. “I haven't learned this area well enough yet. I must have gotten turned about.”

“Well, that's that, then,” the Doctor said with a rather patronizing smile, and Martha was glad that wasn't directed at her this time, or she'd have smacked him, hiding or not. “Hmm. You know, I'm not sure I know the way to Hadden's place from here, either.”

“None of us does,” Rose said, grimacing.

“Why don't we start back in town, then?” Martha suggested. She figured it was better if they were there anyway, and she didn't think being here did anything but offer up more possible hosts—not that she wasn't afraid that others had already been taken. They had this man Hadden, and they might have Alec, too.

“Sounds like as good a place as any,” the Doctor agreed, smiling pleasantly. “And who knows? Perhaps that is where Alec is as well, since he may have confronted the man in town instead of at home. That would be a bit more practical, and Alec is practical, almost to a fault. I can't see him giving his opponent the advantage of going into the lion's den alone.”

The Doctor offered his arm to Rose, missing Ellie's grimace, and Martha could only nod, trying to keep herself from reacting too much to any mentions of his missing son. Alec could be in real trouble, and they didn't have any way of knowing or helping him.

They'd have to see what happened when they were back in town, hope for the best, and that was difficult, knowing how often things went wrong around the Doctor.

The walk to town was quiet enough, and Rose thought something was going on that wasn't being said, something between Martha and Ellie, but she didn't know what that would be. In part, she supposed Martha might have known before any of the rest of them that Ellie was pregnant, and it did hurt a bit that her sister-in-law had confided in the servant first and not her, but she didn't know that it was all by choice. Maybe Martha had just seen something none of the rest of them had.

Or maybe it was something else, since Dùn Ùine had unsettled them all from the beginning.

She didn't know.

She was glad she was with Jamie, taking comfort in his presence, especially after that dream she'd had. She could barely remember it, just the golden light and the singing, but it still bothered her. Every time she tried to bring it back, it got worse, making her wish she hadn't tried, but she kept doing it because she was sure something was wrong and she'd know what it was if she could see the dream in full. She never had.

She didn't want to.

“I suppose we ought to have gone back for Daisy,” Jamie said, and she looked over at him. “I don't much like the idea of leaving her alone, and Alec would have my hide for it.”

“She should be fine at the house,” Ellie said, sounding tired. “We'll have to go back later. We're already most of the way to town, and I'm not turning back now.”

“You sound exhausted,” Rose told her. “Are you sure we shouldn't take you back to the house? You should be resting. Right, Jamie?”

He nodded. “I'm afraid this may be far too much exercise for someone in your condition, Ellie. Don't glare at me like that. I'm well aware that many women have to work through their pregnancies in grueling conditions, but you don't, and you should rest. You are at risk, having suffered such a dangerous miscarriage before.”

“I suppose I should be glad you haven't mentioned my age and how I've gone past that age when I should be having kids, hmm?” Ellie asked, glaring at him and muttering under her breath before walking ahead of all of them. Martha grimaced and hurried to keep pace with her.

At least Martha was taking good care of her.

“I think this might have been why she didn't want to tell us,” Rose said to Jamie. “She knew we'd fuss, and she hates it. Alec must be ten times worse.”

“Oh, aye, he would be,” Jamie agreed. “It still bothers me that he's not here to do it.”

Rose had to admit, that worried her, too. She wouldn't have expected her brother to leave his wife for anything, even if he had other duties around here as laird. The sheep weren't that important, he could have sent Jamie to finish that, and Jamie had also said that they didn't think it was Hadden, so why had Alec gone to see that man?

Did he think Hadden knew more than he said? Or had they been wrong about him?

“Oh, look, there's Daisy,” Jamie said, turning toward his niece and almost dragging Rose along with him. “Not sure I remember that young man, though, and I'm also not sure I like the look of him.”

Rose frowned. She did think the boy was a bit familiar, though she couldn't remember seeing him around much. He was just a bit older than Daisy, but something about him was bothering her. She didn't know what it was. He didn't seem menacing, just a bit lost and maybe a little lovesick from the way he kept following after her and apparently trying to stop her from walking way from him, but nothing bad, not from here.

“Hello, Daisy. I think you should introduce us to your friend here,” Jamie said, all smiles though that was one of his dangerous ones, Rose thought. She knew it as a false one, where anger was hiding just under the surface, and belatedly she was reminded of their fight yesterday. She'd managed to forget it in the confusion after Ellie's announcement, but she was still mad at him.

“Uncle Jamie, Aunt Rose,” Daisy said, greeting them with a bit of a smile, though it was like her uncle's and far from pleasant. “This is my cousin, Calan.”

* * *

“Cousin?” Rose repeated, and Jamie had a feeling he was about to feel her hand on his cheek, though she was wrong. He hadn't left any children behind. He hadn't dared dally with any of the local ladies before parting, and if he had afterward... well, that was another matter all together, and long since passed before he met her.

“Well, I suppose he should be an uncle, too, but that's just too weird to say,” Daisy muttered, giving the boy a look. He flushed red, looking like he wanted to die on the spot.

“What?” Jamie asked. “You're not—I only have the one brother, and you are most certainly not Alec. What are you talking about, Daisy?”

“Don't you remember the photograph Martha showed us yesterday? Your father?” Daisy prodded. She gestured to the boy's face. “He looks exactly like him. Well, younger, but the same, the way you and Da are.”

Jamie tensed, taking a minute to appraise her statement. Oh, damned if she wasn't right. He could see it, comparing the features he remembered well to this child in front of him. He didn't want to believe it, but they'd been gone long enough to where this was certainly more than possible.

“There is a resemblance,” Jamie said as Martha and Ellie joined them. “A rather strong one, in fact. I rather wish I had that photograph to continue the comparison. Uncanny, it is. And a bit unfortunate, too, isn't it?”

The boy grimaced. “It's not true. What she says isn't true.”

“You watch yourself,” Jamie warned him. “My niece isn't a liar.”

“No, I mean... I meant my maw. She's wrong about it. Why would anyone take up with her, anyhow? She's a mean old cow, and I hate her. Everyone does,” the boy said, shaking his head. “Please, don't say anything to anyone. I don't want that spread around.”

“What?” Ellie asked. “What are we talking about now?”

“It would seem Rose was a bit right about my father turning on the town after we left,” Jamie said. “At least... he turned to one woman in particular for... physical comfort. This looks to be my much younger half-brother, poor fellow. What a lineage to have to admit to.”

Ellie looked at Rose. “That woman yesterday, the one who kept saying we didn't have any idea what the laird was like—”

“His mother,” Rose finished. “Has to be. No wonder she didn't even want to speak to us and was so nasty about you having children—she must have figured if long enough passed without Alec or Jamie coming back, she could get all the land around Dùn Ùine because he's the laird's son.”

“I'm not,” the boy insisted. “She's lying. She has to be.”

Jamie frowned. “That is such a curious attitude to have. Why would you be so upset by that? I mean, other than the obvious, which isn't so obvious to most. I have no fond memories of my father, nor does Alec, and yes, you were conceived without the benefit of wedlock, but as you said no man would have your mother, everyone already knew that, didn't they? So why would it bother you to have a claim, however remote, on Dùn Ùine?”

“I think he's ashamed of it,” Ellie said, “though it's a bit more than that, isn't it?”

“Considering that Daisy's about the only one around here his age, it might be a little awkward, seeing as he's apparently her uncle,” Rose observed, and Daisy cringed. “Sorry, but I think it's true. Someone has a bit of a crush on you, and I don't think he liked hearing you were related.”

“We're not,” the boy tried to insist, again, and Jamie found himself frowning and hoping that he was wrong about the thought that had just come into his head.

“Please tell me you were not the one that butchered those sheep,” Jamie said, looking at the boy in a bit of horror. “I know you don't want my father for yours, and it must be difficult knowing that the woman you like isn't really... um... available, but to do that to those sheep—”

“I didn't,” Calan protested immediately. He turned to Daisy. “You don't actually think I would do something like that, do you?”

She grimaced. “I... I don't know. I don't know you.”

“It wasn't me. I swear it wasn't,” he insisted, looking back desperately at Jamie. “Please. Whatever else you think of me... that wasn't me.”

“It was your mother, though, wasn't it?”

“Hardy,” Ellie said, sounding relieved to see him, and Daisy waited, expecting them to embrace, but it didn't happen. He barely acknowledged her, his eyes focused on Calan. Daisy rather wished she hadn't met him on the road. This was all so awkward now, and she didn't want her father knowing that this boy liked her. That would only make it worse.

Not that some people didn't marry their cousins, but this was her half-uncle, and it was just... wrong. She knew it was impossible, and she felt bad for Calan, but she wasn't interested in him like that. At all. 

“It was your mother who killed the sheep, wasn't it?” her father pushed, and Calan grimaced, nodding reluctantly.

“I think so,” Calan said. “She hadn't ever told me about the old laird being my father before, not until you lot came back. I guess she thought she'd make the claim when I was twenty-one. I don't know. I just know I mentioned trying to talk to Miss Hardy, and she started... screaming at me. She was all in a rage about how you were all lying, about how it is wasn't possible or fair. She... she even hit me. Then she left. She was gone all night, and I was hoping she wasn't coming back.”

He looked embarrassed again after that admission, and Daisy felt sorry for him all over again.

“You suspected her?” Uncle Jamie asked, not of Calan but of her father. “I thought you went after Hadden, not the boy or his mother.”

Her father hesitated, looking over at Ellie before answering his brother's question. “We'd discussed how the killing could have been a message, but it seemed to lack focus. That led me back to the idea that it was done in a rage, but who would have had a reason to be in a rage? Only someone who'd had a recent upset, and no one here seemed to have one except for the woman Rose and Miller met that claimed we weren't who we said we were.”

“Right. Makes sense. That doesn't explain where you've been all day, though,” her uncle said. “And you haven't called Ellie 'Miller' since you married her.”

Daisy watched her father, frowning herself. She hadn't realized he'd done that, but he had. He'd stopped calling Ellie by her surname years ago, and it didn't make any sense that he'd start now, not when Ellie was still Mrs. Hardy _and_ pregnant with his baby.

“Why do you even care about that?” her father countered. “We found that the old laird had another son, we believe we know who killed the sheep, and you're picking at my word choice? Who bloody cares about that?”

“Well, it's just a bit strange,” her uncle said, defensive. “And something is different about you, though I can't even begin to understand what that is. I'd say it was because you were due to be a father again, but you've already done it once, so why would it affect you so much? And you didn't answer about where you were, Alec.”

“That's a bit—”

Something loud boomed in the distance, and Daisy darted toward her father when she heard it, taking hold of him and the familiar as she looked over to see smoke rising high into the sky. She frowned, trying to understand what that was. Could that be where the green light had been? Was that was that was?

“Bloody hell,” Ellie whispered. “Was that what I thought it was?”

Her father nodded, eyes on the distance. He looked rather grim, too, and Daisy rubbed her hands over her arms, fighting a chill.

“And you will pay for that,” someone said from behind them. Was that the Hadden guy everyone kept talking about? “We will have you and the Time Lord, and you will both suffer for what you've done.”


	17. Time for Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The others find out about the Family... and themselves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had actually started a scene after the end of this, and it was... not terrible, but after the one scene, it felt a little flat. I guess it gives me a headstart on the next bit, since I won't have as much writing time today, stupid overnight shift after a morning shift nonsense (I hate my job. I hate it.)
> 
> Anyway, I'm going to leave this here for now, though I'm glad it's getting near its end as it has been a very... difficult journey and I have been waiting to finish it for a while now so I can do my other ideas in this universe.

* * *

“Time Lord?” the Doctor said, frowning. “Well, I'd say you were foreign, getting that title all wrong, seeing as how he's a _laird,_ not a _lord,_ and while Dùn Ùine could be translated into Fort of Time, you're still wrong about that. He's not a Time Lord.”

A part of Martha actually wanted to laugh at his words because the Doctor was very much a Time Lord, and his son was half, so he was wrong and it was almost funny. It also wasn't, because the Family had definitely found them. Hadden was not alone in threatening them.

“Maw?” Calan asked, frowning. “What are you doing with Mr. Hadden? You hate him. You hate everyone, but... he hates you, too.”

“Calan, your mum is not your mum anymore,” Ellie told him, grimacing. Martha didn't like it, either, though if that woman had actually killed those sheep, then she wasn't really much of a loss to the town, was she? “Oh, hell, that little girl...”

“Shut it down, Miller,” Alec ordered. “Everyone back to Dùn Ùine. Now.”

“That doesn't make any sense,” the Doctor said. “I examined that girl when I was in town two days ago. She couldn't move. She had a sickness from when she was a wee bairn, and she'd never walked. She was in bed. This shouldn't be possible.”

“What?”

“Polio?” Martha asked. “That girl had polio?”

The Doctor looked at her, frowning. “I'm not sure what you mean, Martha.”

“Infantile paralysis?” she tried instead, not coming up with any older names for the disease off the top of her head, though she would bet it was polio judging from the way the poor girl's leg curved at an unnatural angle, deformed and likely by the disease.

“Easy target,” Alec muttered, and Martha grimaced, though if the disease had been bad enough to keep the girl in bed, she likely had some other complications from it, including trouble breathing at times. In this time period, she couldn't hope for any treatments to improve her situation, not that there was any cure for polio even in Martha's time.

“Um, this is the part where we run, isn't it?” Ellie asked, tugging on Alec's arm.

Hadden lifted up a weapon, green and glowing. “Give us the Time Lord.”

“Again,” the Doctor said. “You've got that all wrong, Hadden, which is strange for you considering you've gone and forgotten your hatred of my brother the _laird._ He's not a Time Lord. There's no such thing. Now stop being so ridiculous. Drop that bizarre weapon and go home.”

“He's here,” Hadden insisted, keeping the weapon on Alec. “You took human form.”

“Of course he's human,” the Doctor said. “He was born human, as was I. As were we all, Hadden. Rose, Daisy, Martha, all of us human. I don't understand what you're doing. This is madness.”

“He has a human brain, too,” another man said, one Martha didn't know. He was younger than Hadden but older than Calan, probably by a decade. She'd never seen him before, either, just as she'd never met the girl. “Simple, thick and dull.”

“He's no good like this,” the woman said. “And something is wrong with that one.”

“We need a Time Lord,” Hadden said. He eyed Alec again, looking at him like he couldn't make sense of what the man actually was. Him being half-human had the Family confused, and Martha thought that was a good thing.

“Easily done,” the younger man said, also pointing a ray gun at them, his focused on the Doctor. “Change back.”

The Doctor frowned. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Change back,” the man repeated.

“I literally do not know—”

“Get off me,” Daisy shouted as Calan's mother grabbed hold of her, putting a gun to her head. “Let me go, or I swear you will regret it.”

“Maw, don't do this,” Calan begged. “Please.”

“She's your daughter, isn't she?” the woman asked, facing Alec before turning to the Doctor. “Your niece. Doesn't this scare you enough to change back?”

“I don't know what you mean,” the Doctor protested again, a bit desperately. He looked at Alec and then at Ellie, trying to block them from getting close enough to get Rose, though Martha knew that would be their next step.

“Let my daughter go,” Alec ordered. “One chance. That's all you get. Let her go now, or he dies.”

“Alec,” the Doctor protested, frowning at his son. “What do you think you're doing? You can't—”

“I can, and I'm not you,” he said, voice cold. “No one threatens my daughter and gets away with it. Last warning. Let Daisy go, or your son and husband can die. Probably at the same time.”

“That's not possible,” Hadden said, frowning, but all of them seemed to have their doubts, looking between themselves in concern.

Daisy used their distraction, elbowing the woman in the gut, hard, and she doubled over, allowing Daisy to get her gun and back away, shaking a little as she pointed it at them.

“She's scared. She won't fire.”

“She doesn't have to,” Alec said. “Drop it, darling, and run. Get as far from it as you can. Trust me. Just go.”

Martha frowned, but she backed away with the others, hearing a very familiar sound a second later. The sonic screwdriver. Alec pointed it at the gun, and the weapon exploded, creating a small crater in the dirt.

He held it up at the Family, and they retreated, leaving their weapons behind.

* * *

“What was that?” Daisy asked. “Da, what just happened? What did you do?”

“That's a bit complicated to explain right now,” her father said, grimacing as he pointed the blue light at the other guns, making them explode in turn. “And we don't have time. They're going to regroup and come back after us, and when they do, they'll be desperate. Desperate is always dangerous.”

“I thought you liked it when people panicked,” Ellie said. “You called it fantastic.”

“In a bloody criminal case, Miller, not with gaseous predator aliens that are trying to take over the universe using my family to do it,” her father grumbled, nudging them on as they slowly started to walk back to the house. “Come on. Back to Dùn Ùine. We don't have a lot of time.”

“I think we all want an explanation,” Uncle Jamie said, lagging back to keep pace with her father even as Martha seemed to be ready to run all the way back. Maybe they should, but Daisy didn't know. She was walking, but that was about all she could do. “I don't understand how—wait, that thing in your hand. That's... I saw it before. In my dreams. It's what the Doctor uses when he's traveling through space and time.”

“We'll explain everything back at the house,” Ellie insisted, pushing to the front like she wanted to get back as fast as possible even if she wasn't running yet. “Come on. We can't be here when they come back.”

“You destroyed their weapons, didn't you?” Rose asked, struggling to match her pace. “They're gone. Whatever that was, it's over now, and we're safe.”

“No, we're not,” her father disagreed, looking back at the town as he walked. “Those things will keep coming until they get hold of the Time Lord they want, and they'll leverage the whole town against him in a minute. Luring them to the house and getting them way from the others will help counter that, but they're not going to stop. They're running out of time, and they'll do whatever it takes to get the Doctor.”

“I thought you destroyed their ship,” Ellie said. “Wasn't that the first explosion we heard?”

Daisy watched as her father shook his head. “No. If I'd done that, I'd have flooded the whole area with radiation for centuries. I blew up the navigational system and stole the vortex manipulator back, but if those engines go, the whole town will be like Chernobyl.”

“Oh, god,” Ellie whispered.

“Da, what is Chernobyl? You're not making any sense.”

“Alec, she's right. You're talking like a madman, and this isn't like you at all,” her uncle said, sounding worried. Daisy was, too, a bit, since her father wasn't usually like this. She didn't understand anything he'd said, but she still trusted him. He'd saved them, and she supposed it didn't really matter how he'd done it.

“I don't want to be talking like this,” her father said, taking the lead in walking back toward Dùn Ùine. “I'd rather I didn't know or remember, not that I want to be stuck in this bloody time period or here. I've always hated this place. Bit of irony to that.”

“You mean since you own it and are apparently here to make sure that it still passes to you in the future?” Ellie asked, and he nodded. “When your mother mentioned that, I was a bit worried, but I think we know how that happens now, don't we?”

“Aye, should have done before, but then my memories were gone,” her father said, “Come on. They are going to make another stand, and they will come in force.”

“And armed, too,” Ellie said, stopping to stare at him. “You might have mentioned the whole 'can't destroy their guns because that would have blown up the ship' part before, you wanker.”

“I did.”

“No, you didn't.”

“Can we just get to the house so someone will explain all of this?” Daisy asked, frowning at all of them, and she assumed the answer was yes when the others started running.

* * *

“I think you'd better explain everything now,” Rose said. She eyed the strange boy that was apparently her husband's half-brother and frowned. “Um... Or maybe not. We do have one more with us than we should have.”

“He's necessary,” Alec said, and now they were frowning at him. She still didn't know where all of this came from, how he'd changed overnight like this—and yet he was still the same man in many ways, but he spoke of the fantastic things that Jamie dreamt about, things that he'd dismissed before, much to Jamie's disappointment.

“I don't understand,” Jamie began. “I know you're not—what does it matter if our father had another son out of wedlock? Unfortunately, the inheritance laws are still firm on the matter—the money goes to Daisy and the land's mine, more's the pity. Unless that new one is a boy.”

“Bloody hell,” Ellie muttered, and Alec held up a hand, warning her to silence.

“Calan McCarter Hardy rebuilt Dùn Ùine after a fire took half of it in the late 1800s,” Alec said, and the boy gaped at him. Rose was still confused, but Ellie nodded. “And that would seem to be a fixed point.”

“You mean the house is going to burn tonight?”

“Most likely,” Alec agreed. She stared at him, shaking her head and muttering to herself, but he didn't give her long to do that. “Where are the other watches?”

“Wait,” Martha said. “No one said we were turning them all back now. You disabled their ships, and they'll come here, apparently set this place on fire, but you want to turn everyone back? Why not use the fire as a way to hide from them? As soon as it starts, we go into the TARDIS. They'll think everyone's dead, and without being able to track the Doctor, they'll stop hunting for him.”

“Two problems with that,” Alec said. “One, their ship isn't going anywhere, and while that sounds good in theory, it means they won't leave. They'll just transfer from body to body as their hosts expire until there's no one left in the whole bloody town. Two, they can still sense me, and they won't give up unless I die.”

“Uh...” Ellie began. “Could we switch you back again?”

“Yes, but that doesn't fix the problem,” he answered with another grimace. “They will just keep switching bodies, though, until they've run through everyone here, and we can't hide in a powered down TARDIS forever. They know what we look like now, and even if we left in the TARDIS—”

“They'd use the town until they ran out of them and then move on somewhere else,” Ellie finished with a grimace. “Okay, so what do we do?”

“Wake the Doctor.”

“Alec, I don't think that's a good idea,” Martha began. “Ellie waking you only worked because you're only half-Time Lord. It confused them. You heard them. If we wake the Doctor, they'll have what they want.”

“And he has nine hundred years of experience to draw on,” Alec said. “Miller's idea about containment fields for the Family is probably a good one, but I can't construct those on my own. I don't have the parts, the time, or the dog.”

“Dog?”

“K-9,” Ellie answered, and Martha shook her head. “You think if you did wake your father, he can build the field?”

“Maybe. Or... there's a slight possibility that the one in the TARDIS would be enough, but that's also a risk,” Alec said, rubbing his head. “Still, I don't know how to construct a portable containment unit like that off the top of my head. He might.”

“Or he should be able to come up with something else,” Ellie said. “It's not really fair pinning all of this on you when you haven't even known about the whole alien thing for that long. It's only been a few months.”

“Why do you keep talking about aliens and all of this like it's real?” Rose said. “This seems more like a dream we haven't woken up from yet.”

“Who has the watch?” Alec asked, turning to Martha. “Go get it. We're waking him up. I don't want to discuss it any longer. We don't have forever before they come, and we already know that they'll be coming in force and we lose at least part of the house.”

Rose frowned. “Alec, you're still not making any sense. At first it was Ellie, and now it's you and Martha, and those people with their strange weapons and—”

“They're... Oh, hell, nothing I say can explain this,” Alec muttered. He shook his head, crossing to Jamie. He put the strange pen into his hand. “Those dreams of yours were real. Probably all of them. You're a time traveler. An alien. The Doctor. You're also... not my brother. You're my father.”

“What?” Jamie asked, frowning. “That's not possible. It's just... not. You're older than me, you have Daisy, you're—”

“You are a nine hundred year old being from another planet. Gallifrey. Your people are Time Lords. I'm only half,” Alec went on. “Those things that took over Hadden, Calan's mother, and the others, they're aliens. Hunters. They're hunting you. They could live forever on your life force.”

“I don't understand,” Jamie said, looking to Rose in desperation. She didn't know what he expected her to say. “This can't be true. None of it.”

“You did say you dreamed of it. You were even going to write it down for Daisy. The blue box. That part I remember, same as I dreamed of the golden light.”

“Bad Wolf.”

Rose trembled, hearing a voice in her head saying those words. _I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself._

“What did you do to her? What did you say? What is this madness? Magic? That's so absurd, and yet this whole thing is so unbelievable...” Jamie said. “No. It's not possible.”

“Think about it,” Alec told him. “Every one of us has said we didn't feel right about this place. What happened when you looked deeper into your memories? When I look at mine now, I know they don't go far enough back. Think of the old laird, the one you believe was your father. What does he look like? How about your mother? Can you see her?”

“No,” Jamie admitted. He grimaced. “All those things that flee from my mind, little things, hundreds of them—”

“All adding up to the big picture that we don't belong here. We never did,” Alec insisted. “The memories we were given were enough to fool us, and we had the sense we shouldn't look further, but we all knew.”

“And this is all a lie? None of this is real?”

Alec snorted. “You gallivanting about, always moving on and seeking adventure and something new? That's still you. That's very much you. The way you feel, that's yours, too. You couldn't be made to feel anything. Martha is a friend. Daisy's your granddaughter, not your niece, but you love her, and she adores you. And Rose is very special to you. There are hundreds of those same little things that make you still you even with the altered memories.”

“So... you're still a grumpy, dutiful sod, I take it?”

“He's a complete wanker,” Ellie said, and Alec glared at her. “He didn't actually change much at all. Well, no, the TARDIS had him thinking he was in love with me, but other than that, basically the same. Sorry, that's your son. You're stuck with him. For life.”

“You say that like I'd mind that,” Jamie said. “I admit, I'm not ready to be a father, and the idea of having you as a son, well, that's a bit insane, but I never hated having you as a brother.”

“So... you'll open the watch, then,” Ellie said. “And go back to being the Doctor?”

“Oh, nice of you to give _him_ a choice, Miller.”

She grimaced. “You would never have believed me. I'm still surprised they believe you.”

Rose frowned. “I don't understand. They want the Doctor, but I remember being married to Jamie. That's not real? Am I real? You said I was special, but you didn't say—”

“You're his mother,” Ellie said, and Rose stared at her in disbelief, feeling a little faint.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realized I committed a certain sin when doing this part, giving someone's part to the wrong person, but with such a big ensemble and a man who should know Hardy, I figured he'd grab Daisy over Martha, even if I didn't want to take that moment from Martha. I just thought it didn't make any sense for them to grab the servant over so many family members.


	18. Time for Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Family attacks, and the Doctor and Hardy confront them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a bit on the fence about this part. I think it has to be like this, but then... I don't know.

* * *

“I think the shock factor worked,” Ellie said, and Hardy snorted, not looking at her. She knew he was angry, knew that they were running out of time, but at least both the Doctor and Rose had agreed to open their watches without much of a fight. Daisy still seemed confused by all of this, and that poor Calan kid, he was going to need his memory wiped or something if he was going to function again. “Though not on Calan.”

“He'll have to forget most of this,” Hardy said. “It was important to find him, make sure he was here and safe to take over Dùn Ùine, since this bloody place is tied to too much in the future, but he doesn't need to know all of this.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “He's never going to understand that you were adopted by his great-great-great-great-grandson. Or is it more greats?”

“I'm not even going to bother to figure it out,” Hardy said, and she smiled a little. “Besides, there's no telling if Stuart was a direct descendent, given that Calan wouldn't have been.”

“Oh, yeah,” Ellie said, a bit glad to have a chance to ask something that had been bothering her for a while now. “What happened to the pair you two replaced? Did they even exist or could the TARDIS alter more than just your memories?”

He shook his head. “The TARDIS chose real people. I'm almost certain that both brothers died in the Crimea. I couldn't prove that, and I doubt that Calan's mother could have proved her claim with the old laird dead, but my sense of him is that he wouldn't have acknowledged him as his son while he was alive. Us being here allowed that to happen, more or less, since despite the strange show we put on afterward, we did agree to the claim.”

“And when everyone 'dies' in this fire, he'll get the house and the land and the money.”

Hardy nodded. “Aye.”

“Your mother was worried about that,” Ellie said. “I'm glad that's one less thing we have to fix. I was afraid we'd have to do something crazy like go find an orphan to adopt or convince them I was really pregnant—No. It's best this way.”

Hardy only grunted.

“You had us all worried earlier, going off on your own like that,” Ellie told him. “That wasn't my intention when I woke you. I knew it was a risk, not that I wanted you putting yourself in harm's way again. I just... I needed help, and Martha didn't have any answers. Plus, you know me. I've always got to be doing.”

He nodded again. “That you do, Miller.”

“Your father should be able to make the containment field idea work, right?”

“Aye.”

Ellie nodded. “That's good, then. This should hopefully be over soon, and we can all go back to our normal lives. Well, as normal as they get these days. Oh, God. We still have to go back to Joe's trial. What if he doesn't plead guilty this time?”

“The evidence is strong, and even if the case against him for Danny's death was not proven, it counts against him,” Hardy told her. “It's unlikely it'll happen twice, and if it does, Harkness said Torchwood would deal with him. Stop fussing.”

“I just can't stand the idea of Joe going free.”

“He won't.”

“And what happens when—” Ellie broke off as something loud pounded the roof. Hardy pulled her back as a shell crashed through to the floor, setting the wreckage around it on fire. “Bloody hell. You didn't do anything about their ship's weapons?”

“I did. I think they managed to fix it,” Hardy said, turning back to his father. “There you are. We don't have much time.”

“You could have warned me it would hurt again,” the Doctor grumbled, Scottish accent gone as he adjusted his suit. “I swear, I haven't felt anything like that since... oh, probably Zagarvis? That was a nightmare. Go for a few tasty treats, end up captured and tortured as an enemy of the state, and were they good at torture. I'm glad the Master never went there. I might not have survived. Oh, but that's a story for another time, really. Not that I enjoy telling tales of the Master when—”

Another shell hit the house, not far from the first, thankfully. The damage was confined to that spot, then, which was good. Mostly. Ellie had forgotten how easily distracted the Doctor was and prone to tangents, even if he'd still done that as his human self.

“We need to deal with the Family,” Hardy told him. “Right now.”

“Agreed,” the Doctor said. “So... Everyone into the TARDIS for now. I need to grab a few things, and we don't want anyone hurt in the house.”

“Take the others in there,” Hardy ordered her. “Watch over Daisy.”

Ellie thought about protesting about being left behind, but the house got hit again, and she figured to hell with it. Into the TARDIS.

* * *

“And you're sure that will work to contain the blast of destroying the ship?” Hardy asked as he walked with his father toward where it was, not sure if there would be anything left of Dùn Ùine by the time they got there. He knew the place had to be rebuilt, but he didn't think that poor sod needed to be saddled with building it all from scratch.

The Doctor held up the disc. “Yup. Attach this to the outer hull, make an inner explosion, and the spectacular boom will be contained. There is the issue of what to do once we've gotten them out of the ship, of course, but we'll deal with that as it comes. I did make more than one containment field, after all. And I'm curious to see how they do on gaseous humanoids.”

Hardy nodded, accepting that for now. He figured his father's plan had a few flaws, but then the man never had a fully formed one in the first place. Not that Hardy did much better. He was a cop, he followed one likely line of inquiry and then the next until he got an answer, and the other stuff fell into place along the way.

The ground rocked near them, and the Doctor grabbed hold of him, holding him so he didn't fall. He gave his father a look, and the older alien shrugged. “What? I am your father.”

“And I'm not a baby, even if my life so far is less than a quarter of yours.”

“Ah, but I so seldom get to act like a father,” the Doctor said. “After all, I didn't even know you existed.”

“Neither of us is going to exist for much longer if we don't get into their ship,” Hardy told him, shoving him forward. He stumbled into the door, almost falling inside.

“We'll blast them into dust, then fuse the dust into glass, then shatter them all over again,” the one Hardy didn't recognize said as the Doctor stumbled in. The ground shook, again, and the Doctor fell with an exaggerated tumble at the end.

“Just,” the Doctor began, resuming his Scottish accent as the ship rocked under his feet, “Just stop the bombardment. That's all I'm asking. I'll do anything you want, just, just stop.”

“Say please,” the one at the controls said, giving him a sneer.

“Please.”

Mrs. McCarter activated a control. “Wait a minute. He's still human. That scent... where's the other one? The dangerous one.”

“I... he sent me in here,” the Doctor said, sounding weak and pathetic. “I... I can't pretend to understand, not for a second, but I want you to know I'm innocent in all this. He made me Jamie Hardy. It's not like I had any control over it.”

He touched the console, running his hands over more switches.

“He didn't just make himself human,” Mrs. Carter said. “He made himself an idiot.”

“Same thing, isn't it?” the other one asked. “Why don't you come in instead of watching from the door? In fact, we insist on it. And don't think your weapon will work on these ones. Your house will fall tonight.”

“No, don't bring him in,” the Doctor said. “Look, I don't care about this Doctor or your family. I just want you to go. So I've made my choice. You can have him. Just take it, please. Take him away.”

The Doctor held out the watch, and the Etheabosian frowned, smiling a moment later. “He is in the watch. At last.”

Hadden took the watch from the other man, giving the Doctor a harsh look. “Don't think that saved any of your lives. Get the other one.”

He pushed the Doctor away, knocking him into a console as the other one grabbed Hardy and yanked him inside. He saw his father mess with more switches, looking like he wasn't doing it on purpose. Someone else was the idiot in the room, and Hardy wanted to see their faces when they realized it.

“Family of Mine, now we shall have the lives of a Time Lord,” Hadden said. He opened the watch and everyone sniffed. Then they glared at the Doctor. “It's empty.”

“Where's it gone?” the Doctor asked, pretending he didn't know.

“You tell us,” Hadden said, and the one holding onto Hardy tightened his grip. He shrugged. Hadden threw the watch to the Doctor, who caught it without looking. “He is here.”

“Oh, yes,” the Doctor said, dropping the accent and grinning at them. “I think the explanation might be you've been fooled by a simple olfactory misdirection. Little bit like ventriloquism of the nose. It's an elementary trick in certain parts of the galaxy.”

Hardy glared at him. He hadn't known how to do that, and his father hadn't shown him, which might have helped after Miller woke him early. “Knob.”

“Oi, no name calling,” the Doctor said, fighting laughter. “Still, it has got to be said, I don't like the looks of that hydroconometer. It seems to be indicating you've got energy feedback all the way through the retrostabilisers feeding back into the primary heat converters.”

“You shouldn't have let him touch any of your buttons,” Hardy agreed. “He tends to wreck things.”

“Again with the defamation of my character,” the Doctor said. “We need to have a long talk about this, son.”

“Son?”

The Doctor grinned. “I know, isn't it wonderful? I had thought the whole thing was impossible after the Time War, but now I have a family again. Of course, you did threaten them, and that upsets me, so I'm really not that bothered by the fact that... well, he's right. You shouldn't have let me press all those buttons. In fairness, I will give you one word of advice. Run.”

The Doctor ducked out of the door, and Hardy followed after him, using the distraction the Doctor had caused to slip out of the other Etheabosian's hold. The alarms started going off, and Hardy turned back to point the screwdriver at the door, sealing them inside.

His father stared at him. “What are you doing? When did you get that back?”

“Nicked it when you fell on me,” Hardy told him. “And I'm ending this. For good and all.”

“You can't. We have to let them have a chance, have to—”

“Can the people they took as hosts ever be returned to the people they once were?”

The Doctor winced. “No. The process destroys the mind. Only a few surface memories remain. Hadden, Mrs. McCarter, and the other two are effectively dead. That doesn't make trapping them in there right. I didn't come here to do that.”

“I know you didn't. You hid. You ran, then you hid, because you knew underneath all of it, it had to end in death. Their death from the end of their life cycle, that was what you wanted to achieve by keeping on the move or hiding, but they took hosts. They bought more time, and you can leave them to run out that time, but to what end? Is that really kinder? Or would you give them forever, trapped in mirrors or the event horizon of a black hole? Yes, they'll be eternal, but to what end? This isn't a situation where a peaceful, kind solution exists. It ends in death.”

“Can you live with yourself if you do this?”

Hardy looked back at the ship. “I have thousands of Daleks on my hands already. I've committed genocide, same as you. What is a few more lives?”

“No, no, that's a dangerous path—and I'm not sure I want to know how you have Daleks on your hands when they should all be gone after Canary Wharf and Manhattan, but you don't have to do this. We'll take them and let nature run its course. They'll die, but not like this.”

“I don't know that we have time for that any more.”

The Doctor sighed. “Did you really think you could live with yourself?”

“Honestly, I don't know.”


	19. Time for Parting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor says goodbye to his son, again. Hardy and the others return to Cardiff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here it is, the end. I figured out a while back that it was going to end the way it did with Hardy, though some of the middle was hard to know and it all felt like it went wrong on me, making me want to give up on the whole thing, which was rather... disheartening as this one was holding up others in the series, including the one that was chomping at the bit to be done a while back. I'm a bit less sure I can do that one now, almost afraid to start anything.
> 
> At least this one is done.

* * *

“You know you can't make them forget everything.”

The Doctor nodded, aware of Rose watching him. He almost wished he could, for her sake, as that interlude between him and her—rather between Jamie and Rose Hardy—could not be repeated, even if she was the future mother of the man standing next to him. He didn't understand how he could have allowed that to happen.

“I don't know the specifics,” his son told him, and the Doctor looked at him. “Of how you and Rose ended up with me. One would almost say we just lived it, but you were human at the time, and unfortunately, I'm part Time-Lord.”

“Why should that be unfortunate?”

“Are you bloody joking? What did we just live through, and do you honestly think that I would want to do that on a regular basis?” Alec asked, shaking his head. “No. I'm not interested in having my life disrupted by aliens all the time. I don't like being hunted for what I am—and no, this wasn't the first time. I don't like knowing that I could become a target because of something you did, and worse, that Daisy might. She's still under the belief that all the alien stuff is good, though this one I think changed that. I don't know. I can't tell with her right now.”

“Can you, normally? We have a fairly strong sense of each other, even for such a short time of knowing each other.”

“Short for you. I've met you before, and not just in this body. You helped me with my shields and we fought some Hoelf. You're in there, even when you don't know about it.”

“I suppose that's true, but given the strength of your bond with your daughter, who is only a quarter Time Lord, I believe that the genetic part of it has more impact than you might like,” the Doctor said, though he was still unsettled by it. He didn't know how to feel about his son after the man's actions earlier, though in part, he did understand them. “She is special.”

“Worth forgetting and keeping this timeline despite what I've done?”

“Interesting. Would you apply the same logic to everyone who has ever taken a life?” the Doctor asked. “You said you killed Daleks. Do you know how many I've killed? Or how many people have died for me? That number is almost worse than the Daleks. I even—”

“Gallifrey was different,” Alec said, and the Doctor stared at him, trying to understand why he would ever have told his son about that. “And I understand what you did. It was an impossible choice. You made it, and I'd have done the same.”

“You said you did.”

Alec grimaced. “More or less. We could have walked away from that without killing them. We just would have had to fight them again, and people would have died along the way. Besides, it's easy to make that choice when you think you're going to die.”

“I know,” the Doctor agreed. He'd never thought he'd live past the Moment, and he didn't want to. He still didn't, sometimes, though Rose had helped him start to see the beautiful in the universe again. “We're still here, though. And now you have to live with what you did to the Family.”

“I know.”

The Doctor drew in a breath, letting it out and crossing to embrace his son. “I do wish I didn't have to forget. This... I want more time.”

“You don't always have to forget. There's a time ahead of you where you don't,” Alec told him, and the Doctor smiled at that even as his son pulled away. “Though... you also have to go through something else first. I don't have all the details, but this... the chameleon arch is involved. Rose and Martha have to know you used it. I think. I don't know about the rest. I wasn't given much detail.”

The Doctor nodded. “I'll make sure they're still aware of... some of this. And you... You'll remember it all, won't you?”

“I should,” Alec said. “That's my penance. I'll remember all of it.”

* * *

“I'm sorry about this, Martha,” the Doctor told her. “We couldn't have done this without you, and now I have to change a lot of what you know and did, and you were wonderful. I don't know many people who would have accepted being our servant.”

Martha shook her head. “It could have been a lot worse. You all chose to see me as family, not just some slave, and it mattered. Plus, I slept in the TARDIS. That helped.”

The Doctor smiled back at her. “I'm sure it did. Still, thank you. And... I'm sorry again, for what I have to do now. I'll need to go in your mind. If there's something you don't want me to see, then you just put it behind a door. And... ready?”

Martha nodded. He put his hands on her face and closed his eyes, setting to work. Rose watched, trying to be respectful and not interrupt. She had a thousand questions that she wanted to ask, and she was also a bit afraid of forgetting, even if she knew she had to, for the timelines.

And the Doctor's family.

“That's it, easy,” the Doctor said, catching Martha as she fell. Rose's eyes widened, and she rushed over to help her.

“I thought you said—”

“I gave her a suggestion that she should sleep,” the Doctor said. “That's all, Rose. She's fine. She'll sleep and wake with altered memories, like we all will. We're going to forget that Alec, Ellie, and Daisy were there, and since we can't remember them, I've changed the location and the time, but it's fine. I'll need some time after I help you, too, so you'll sleep while I fix my own memories.”

“I know that I have to forget,” Rose said, taking the Doctor's hand and getting him to look at her, “but I wanted to know... was it just because we were human? You... only love me... when we're both human.”

The Doctor winced. “Rose, that's not—”

“Not true? Because I kind of think you mean it to be,” she said, hurt. She should have known. She'd tried not to love him, she had, but she did, no matter what face he had. “Don't tell me to be happy just because I know that I'll have your son someday. That's not... love. Not really. Plenty of people have kids without any kind of affection. I don't want to be just... some woman who can have your kid. I know I don't get stuck at home raising him, but that's not the point. Did I actually turn myself into nothing more than an empty vessel that carries your kid for a bit and that's it?”

“No,” he said, putting his hands on her face. “Rose, please. You mean so much more to me. I know you don't understand that, but I have tried to explain it—how you need a hand to hold. I need yours. You helped me heal after the Time War, and you have given me so much—you don't even know how much you've done for me. I can't lose you. And no... I don't—I'm glad I have my son and my granddaughter. I am so glad. I am, but that's not the only reason you matter to me. I just... Rose, I'm not the one for the slow path and staying in one place—”

“I'm not asking for that. I'm just asking for you to acknowledge that you feel something for me.”

He leaned his head against hers. “Oh, but I do. I feel so much. I feel enough where it scares me, even knowing as I do that Bad Wolf has altered you and I still get to have you for at least a little longer according to Alec's timeline.”

“I love you,” she told him, and he looked at her, a bit suspicious.

“Did you only tell me that because I'm going to forget about this?”

“Maybe.”

* * *

“We should really discuss what happened in the past,” Ellie said once they were back in the Plass, and Hardy gave her a look. She grimaced, but she pushed on all the same. “At least part of it. I know you and the Doctor stopped the Family, but you didn't say how, and I'm not the only one who saw the tension between the two of you when you got back.”

She looked at Daisy. Daisy shrugged. “You were upset, I think. I was still adjusting to the bond being back, so I don't know. The whole thing was weird, and all I can think now is that my great-great-great grandfather tried to hit on me.”

“He's not actually related to you by blood,” Hardy said, looking like he did not to think about that. Ellie thought he was one of those fathers who would always see his daughter as his little girl. A part of Ellie wanted to see what he'd be like when Daisy started to date, because he so was not ready for it. He might never would be, but then again, his daughter wasn't any old daughter. Daisy was part Time Lord, and it would take someone very special to be worthy of that.

“No, but it's pretty weird, and I think we could all use a drink after that,” Ellie said, rubbing her head. “This whole situation ended up rather... messed up.”

Hardy looked at his watch. She thought that was funny, a Time Lord with a watch. “We still have time before the trial. You go on, find a place nearby, get a table. I'll go talk to the pervert and meet you there.”

Ellie knew he was just trying to avoid talking, but she decided to let him, for now. She still needed a drink before she heard Joe's plea, just in case that bastard decided to claim he wasn't guilty. Again. She took Daisy's arm and led her over to the nearest restaurant.

The hostess sat them in a booth, leaving menus behind, and Ellie picked hers up, starting to read. None of this had any real appeal, but if she had a drink, she'd be fine.

“What are you going to do about it?”

Ellie lowered her menu, frowning. “About Joe? You know your father's making sure that Torchwood will deal with him if he—”

“Not about that. About Dad being in love with you.”

Ellie choked. She reached for her water and took a sip, trying to stop coughing. “What? No. Daisy, that was just the memories the TARDIS gave him.”

Daisy snorted. “In the first place, I know my dad. In the second, he told Gramps that what he felt was real, that the TARDIS couldn't make any of us feel something we didn't really feel. He as much as said that it was all true. He does love you.”

Ellie stared at her. That couldn't be true, could it? Hardy actually in love with her? She didn't, couldn't believe that. “No.”

Daisy set down her menu, looking at the window. She sighed. “I guess that answers that question, doesn't it?”

Ellie shook her head. “No, it just means that your father isn't—he's not actually in love with me. He finds me irritating, and we're barely even friends. We've been thrown together, but we're not _together._ I know I told him and you to stay with me until he settles somewhere, but that's not—you wouldn't actually want me as a stepmother. I was terrible at it. The good memories—those were given to you by the TARDIS, not by me. I'm sorry.”

“It's not me that I care about. I've got a mum, even if we've been fighting a lot, and I've got Gran. I don't need a mother, but the fact that you can't even see Dad—I don't understand. I know he's not the nicest man, but he showed you what it could be like, the kind of love he has and gave Mum before she threw it away. He's not just a grumpy bastard. He's a good man. And he cares about you. You won't even acknowledge that.”

Ellie sighed. Hardy had been a good kisser, but she'd been sure none of it was real. The fact that Daisy believed it had her confused, doubting what she'd been sure of before.

They were still sitting there in silence when the hostess led Hardy over to them. Daisy saw her father and bolted for the loo before he could say anything. Hardy turned toward her with a frown.

“Miller?”

“I upset her. Get me a drink if that waitress ever comes back,” Ellie told him, following Daisy back to the loo. This seemed familiar, even if normally she was the one being found hiding in a stall.

She pushed the door open and went over to her stall. “Daisy, please, I... You know what my husband did. I'm not... I haven't gotten over that, and I honestly didn't think that your father really felt like that. I still don't, but that doesn't mean that he... he's a decent man, he is. I just... wasn't expecting that. At all.”

Daisy didn't answer. 

“If I admit that he really was a good kisser, can we go back and sit down? I want that drink before Joe's plea hearing.”

Daisy opened the door and peered out at her. “You liked it when Dad kissed you?”

Ellie felt herself get red. “No. Of course not. Bloody hell, I need that drink.”

* * *

“Sir, did you want the check?”

Hardy nodded, taking the bill for the drinks from the waitress. He knew Miller would be upset if she realized that she didn't actually eat anything and only had a few sips from her glass, but if things worked as they were meant to, then none of that would matter.

He dug out his wallet, accidentally bumping Daisy as he did. She blinked, lifting her head from his arm with a frown.

“Oh,” she said. “I didn't mean to fall asleep.”

“Ach, you know I don't mind. It was a long trip, and you're not the only one,” Hardy told her, and she looked over at Miller, who had dropped her head onto the table, drooling a bit onto her hands. “You have your phone?”

“Of course,” Daisy said, reaching to pull it out. She snapped a picture, the flash going off even though they were inside, and Miller jerked her head up, staring at him.

“Hardy?” she asked, rubbing her head. “What happened?”

“Apparently the stress hit you when the alcohol did,” he said, nodding to her drink. “I was just about to wake you. Joe's due to plea in about twenty minutes.”

“What?” Miller demanded. “How did you let it get so late? Last I remember, we were standing on the Plass and discussing books, and now Joe's due to plea. What are you doing sitting there? Let's go.”

She grabbed her things and headed for the door. Hardy watched her leave, somewhat relieved that Harkness had given him the right dosage.

“Dad?” Daisy asked. “Is something wrong?”

He shook his head. “No, darling. Everything is fine.”

She nodded, seeming to accept that. She rose, but didn't rush after Miller. “You know what's kind of funny? I thought maybe, because we were in Cardiff and there's that rift in space and time... I kind of thought maybe we'd see Gramps. Silly, I guess.”

Hardy nodded, saying nothing as she walked away. He had to remember, that was his penance, but they got to forget, and right now, he almost envied both of them.


End file.
